Though it's one of the most important terms in conservation, a conservation easement isn't exactly a linguistic equivalent of a freebie. I'll be the first to admit that my mind landed on the term with an audible thud, but upon visiting the Nature Conservancy Web site, I learned it is really an interesting concept.

A conservation easement essential places restriction on a piece of property, protecting certain landowner rights and selling or donating a chunk of those rights. Most often the right to develop or subside that portion of land is give up, so to speak, and that particular piece of land is then protected from future development.

What is interesting about an easement is the ability to target very specific rights that are necessary to protecting from environmental damage—water quality for example. The landowner retains certain rights, and the easement is designed to work synonymously with the landowner so that any personal needs remain uninterrupted.

I ventured across an article from the Nature Conservancy regarding a sustainable project to protect 197,000 acres of the Great Redwood Forest in California (which happens to be 10 percent of all redwoods worldwide according to the Conservancy). Obviously the concern is the risk of deforestation and destructive building practices that could cause irreversible harm to the revered colossi.

A few interesting tidbits from the article:

• Humboldt County's tiny little milling town of Scotia is at the center of a bankruptcy case concerning the local timber industry. Scotia residents and the forest could share an intertwined fate once the ball gets rolling on the conservation project.
  
• Temporary protection is in place, but expires in 2050. The coalition of organizations are looking into a potential conservation easement, which essentially sells a portion of landowner rights to the Conservancy in order to prevent said landowner from offering developers chunks of forest to spin into a parking lot.

What is probably not immediately apparent is the underlying importance of such a project. Look, the environmentalist in all of us appreciates protecting the aesthetic beauty of historically important areas like the Great Redwood Forest. The renewable energy debate focuses much of it's time on energy independence, but keep in mind that deforestation is a significant contributor to increasing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.