Land conservation efforts around the world are underpinned by national and sub-national frameworks of conservation laws and policies. These include property law, land use regulations, tax law and financial incentives, and enabling legislation for conservation and protected area creation among others, and are unique to a country or juridiction's legal system. We connect conservation practitioners who are using, developing and adapting legal tools and policy levers to create the critical enabling conditions that allow individuals and organizations to undertake effective and enduring land conservation efforts in their jurisdictions.
Resources & Education
Recent ILCN and external resources related to conservation law and policy.
2021 Global Congress Session Recordings
Organisations and conservation practitioners in common law jurisdictions discuss the core agreements used in their country, including conservation covenants in Australia and New Zealand and conservation easements in the United States.
This report provides an overview of the status of Privately Protected Areas in 30 countries throughout Latin America, Asia, the Pacific, and Sub-Saharan Africa.
In 2012, the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy sponsored a panel at an international conference on agriculture and forestry to expose U.S. practice with land trusts and conservation easements, and to ask questions about the transferability of the U.S. experience to other countries.
Experts
Laura Johnson
Senior Advisor, International Land Conservation Network
Laura Johnson is a life-long conservationist with more than 30 years experience in non-profit management. She is a co-founder and former director of the International Land Conservation Network and a senior advisor to both the ILCN and the European Land Conservation Network. Laura is the immediate past president of Mass Audubon where she spent 14 years leading the country’s largest independent state Audubon organization. Prior to joining Mass Audubon, she worked for 16 years at The Nature Conservancy working both as a lawyer and in positions including Massachusetts state director and northeast region vice president. Laura is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Land Trust Alliance. She is also an Overseer of WGBH, on the Board of Advisors of the Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC), on the Board of Visitors of Mount Auburn Cemetery, and a Corporation member of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. Laura served for 8 years as a founding member of the MA Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Stewardship Council. Laura received a BA in history from Harvard, and a JD from NYU Law School. From 2013-2014 she was a Bullard Fellow at the Harvard Forest, Harvard University where she completed a study on private land conservation efforts around the world. For relevant publications by Laura Johnson, see: http://www.lincolninst.edu/publications/working-papers/open-field
Roberto Peralta
Attorney, Peralta Abogados (Chile)
Roberto Peralta is a Chilean born in Paris, France. Roberto works as a lawyer in Chile and New York, with his practice focused on non-profit organizations, B corporations, private conservation, corporate social responsibility, international transactions and commercial law. Roberto also teaches at the Catholic University of Chile, the University of Chile and the Alberto Hurtado University. He is a member of the Chilean Presidential Council for Citizen Participation (Ministry of the Interior) and the Council for Social Donations (Ministry of Social Development). Roberto is also a member of the public policy committee for the Community of Social Organizations, actively involved in the modification of the tax legislation dealing with non-profit organizations and in the promulgation of the "Real Right of Conservation" in Chile.
Philip Tabas
Senior Advisor, The Nature Conservancy
Philip Tabas is Special Advisor with the North American Conservation Region of The Nature Conservancy in Arlington VA. He served as the Conservancy’s General Counsel from 2003 to 2013. He has also held a range of legal and non-legal positions in TNC in the areas of land protection, government relations, compatible economic development and conservation planning. Philip has been involved in numerous private land conservation and compatible economic development projects, particularly involving the use of conservation easements in the United States and in other countries. He has worked to secure tax incentive policy and legislation changes for conservation at the US Federal and state levels of government as well as in other countries. He is currently working a study of private landowners preferences for conservation tools in Europe. Prior to TNC, he practiced law with a private law firm, worked as an attorney for a government water resources management agency and was an attorney with an environmental consulting firm. Philip is a tax lawyer and a land use planner by professional training. He holds degrees in English Literature from Pennsylvania State University, in Law from George Washington University Law School, in Tax Law from Boston University Law School and in City Planning from the University of Pennsylvania. He is a member of the American College of Environmental Lawyers; a member of the Board of Directors of The Potomac Conservancy; a member of the Board of Directors of Friends of Herring River; a co-author of Comprehensive Planning and the Environment, published by Abt Books; and he teaches a summer course entitled “Ecosystem Conservation Strategies” at the Vermont Law School.
Sabrina Wei
Professor, Beijing Forestry University
Guihong Wei (Sabrina) is a Law Professor of Beijing Forestry University, Director of Law and Policy Institute for National Forest, Director of Forest Farm Rights & Interests Protection Committee of China. Her research fields include in Environmental and Natural Resources Law, Land and Biodiversity Conservation etc. and she published 3 books and 33 articles. In the beginning of April 2019, Sabrina Wei became a Visiting Scholar at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, working with staff from the International Land Conservation Network and the Land Conservation Program team. During the course of her research she has been working with Jim Levitt, who is the Associate Director of Land Conservation Programs at the Lincoln Institute, discussing conservation easement cases in the world and doing field research on different types of conservation easements. She has also been connecting with academics, lawyers and experts in the United States in the field of conservation to hear about their research and experience in the field. Her research will summarize systematically the overall experience with conservation easements in the United States and reflect the recent development of the nature reserve system in China, including studying the practice of conservation easements in the United States and the potential application of conservation easements to national park, nature protected area construction of China.
Mike Jebson
Senior Partner, Southern Falcon Consulting Ltd.
Mike is Senior Partner at Southern Falcon Consulting Ltd. Southern Falcon, A New Zealand Based environmental consultancy, provides expert consulting, policy and executive management services to rural landowners, agriculture, horticulture and forestry businesses, Not-for-Profits, Government Research Entities, as well as Local and Central Government agencies in regards to conservation and environmental issues in New Zealand and Internationally. Up until August 2019 Mike was the Chief Executive of the Queen Elizabeth II National Trust (QEII) - New Zealand's leading private land conservation organisation. QEII has established over 4,500 covenants over the last forty years. Prior to QEII Mike was a Senior advisor to the New Zealand Government on environmental issues for agriculture and forestry. During the mid 2000's he was lead climate change negotiator for the New Zealand Government for these sectors.
Inga Račinska
Head of Council, Latvian Fund for Nature
Latvian Fund for Nature (LFN) is one of the largest nature conservation NGOs in Latvia. Its mission is to protect the biological diversity. In order to achieve its mission, the organization engages in practical nature conservation projects and works on policy making on national and EU level. As Head of the Council, Inga is responsible for leading the policy-making processes in the organization. She is a biologist, with a strong experience in international cooperation, project implementation and monitoring. In terms of habitats, the main focus of Latvian Fund for Nature is grasslands and forests - restoration, management and stakeholder engagement. To achieve that, LFN is working extensively with engaging farmers and landowners in nature initiatives. LFN is also a land manager, managing some of the state lands and private lands of high biological importance, mainly grasslands. LFN's main interest in ELCN is collaboration on practical initiatives of land management for biodiversity and development of innovative paths for collaboration.
Judith LaBelle
President Emeritus, Glynwood
As a practicing attorney in New York City, founding president of Glynwood (a nonprofit in NY’s Hudson Valley that promotes regenerative agriculture and regional food systems), and a private citizen, my career has focused on conservation of cultural and natural resources, land use, food and agriculture and environmental protection. While Counsel and Deputy Director to the NYS Commission on the Adirondacks in 1990, I analyzed other counties’ efforts to meld government and private conservation. International experience has included that resulting from Glynwood’s many years of leadership of the US side of the International Countryside Exchange program. I have led delegations to study and advise projects relating to parks, cultural heritage tourism and sustainable agriculture in France, Germany, the Netherlands, Italy and Japan; and lectured on behalf of the US State Department Speakers Tour in Italy (on private land conservation techniques) and Germany (on community-based conservation and regional agriculture). In 2012, I retired as president of Glynwood and moved to Costa Rica where I write, serve on the Board of the GRACE Communications Foundation and the Advisory Committee of ILCN and provide advice and assistance to a variety of colleagues and organizations.
Geoff Westcott
Honorary Research Fellow, Deakin University (Australia)
Geoff has recently retired from academia and continues his interests and work in land and sea conservation through his roles on Victoria's (Australia) government advisory council on public land planning (Victorian Environment Assessment Council) and as Deputy Chair of Zoos Victoria - which manages three zoos/ sanctuaries and focuses on conservation. Geoff owns a covenanted (easement) property with his partner Victoria in Victoria's 'gold country' and has been a member of the ILCN's advisory council since its inception. He completed a review of Victoria's marine and coastal environment which resulted in the Marine and Coastal Act 2018 and continues his active involvement in environmental policy (land and sea) that was the focus of his 35 year academic career.
Jessica Owley
Professor, University of Miami
Jessica Owley specializes in Environmental and Property Law. She is a leading expert on private land conservation and conservation easements. Her interdisciplinary work explores ways to mitigate and adapt to climate change as well as furthering other environmental goals in the context of drastic change. Professor Owley holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management from the University of California—Berkeley where she also received a J.D. and MLA. She practiced in the Land Use and Environmental Law group at Morrison & Foerster in San Francisco. Before joining Miami Law, Owley was a Professor of Law at SUNY Buffalo where she directed the Environmental Law Program. Prior to Buffalo, she was an Assistant Professor at Pace Law School. She spent 2017 as a Visiting Professor at the Universidad Pontificia – Comillas (ICADE) in Madrid, Spain where she was an OECD fellow. She is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Law, Property, and Society. She is one of the founding members and the current president of the Environmental Law Collaborative. She is a member of the IUCN’s World Commission on Environmental Law and the World Commission of Protected Areas.
Henry Tepper
Board Member and Consultant, Fundacíon Tierra Austral
Henry Tepper serves as a Board member and a Strategic Conservation Consultant to the Fundacíon Tierra Austral in Chile, and its El Boldo to Cantillana land conservation initiative. He is also an independent conservation consultant based in Boston, MA and teaches land conservation practice at the Harvard University Extension School and Brandeis University. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of the International Land Conservation Network and is on the Board of Directors of the Northeast Wilderness Trust in the US.
Key Partners and Networks for Additional Resources
