Prime Real Estate

By Jennifer Boudart

Provided that so a great deal land in the United States is privately owned, doing work with conservation-minded landowners to maintain the value of their property for waterfowl and other wildlife has become more and more crucial to Ducks Unlimited’s mission. In point, DU is building on an impressive observe history in land defense many thanks to its Conservation Lands Method, which has been in place for additional than 30 decades. By means of this application, DU functions with keen landowners to pursue mutually advantageous land-safety choices, together with prepared presents, conservation easements, and the donation or sale of land. The program has enabled DU to safe large-precedence wildlife habitat, safeguard rural landscapes from progress, grow general public lands in cooperation with condition and federal partners, and crank out supplemental cash for its conservation do the job.

Most of DU’s shielded lands slide beneath the auspices of its nonprofit land-keeping subsidiary, Wetlands The united states Trust (WAT). Established in 1985, WAT delivers specialised monetary and philanthropic assist to DU and has fiduciary responsibility for its endowment and land holdings. The third-premier land have faith in in North America, WAT maintains a portfolio of holdings that incorporates a blend of conservation easements and parcels ordered with the intent to finally market or transfer them to other conservation pursuits.

At present, WAT retains 590 conservation easements on almost 500,000 acres. A conservation easement forever guards land although enabling the landowner to keep non-public ownership. Landowners voluntarily agree to abide by specific limits that maintain precious habitat and other normal resources. These limitations are exclusive to just about every property and may well variety from prohibiting wetland drainage to limiting road construction. Landowners can proceed to generate revenue from their land and preserve its benefit for potential generations.

Mallard Relaxation is a wonderful instance of how a conservation easement can enable landowners make a lasting legacy. The Rozier family members of Greenwood, Mississippi, ordered this home in 2019. Due to the fact they owned a neighboring home, the Roziers have been perfectly aware of Mallard Rest’s value for duck hunting. For a long time, they experienced read about how Billy Dunavant—a legendary DU supporter and WAT emeritus board member—had maintained Mallard Relaxation as a premier duck-searching residence for more than four many years.

“Our property would not get ducks until finally Mallard Rest stuffed up, and some would last but not least flow in excess of to us,” Craig Rozier recollects. He jokes that the circumstance was considerably like customers trying to get out considerably less well-known dining places just after the most effective just one experienced stuffed up. “We held an eye on Mallard Rest,” he continues, “and when it went on the sector, we had been blessed to be capable to make a move on it.”

Craig, his brother, Michael Jr., and their dad, Mike Sr., all have a passion for waterfowl searching and are committed to making Mallard Rest as important to wildlife as it was in Dunavant’s working day. The loved ones owns a building organization and has tackled operate every 12 months to make improvements to obtain on the property, put in water-command structures, and build or rebuild duck blinds. They farm 1,200 acres and control about 400 acres for wildlife habitat. Craig suggests these advancements are not only creating the looking improved every single time, they are also earning greater habitat for wintering waterfowl.

“We’re offering ducks a put to relaxation and feed and pair up, and that signifies far more ducks to go back north in springtime to breed,” Craig suggests.

The Rozier brothers are passing on their waterfowl hunting tradition to their have small children. To protect Mallard Relaxation for generations to occur, they put a DU conservation easement on the assets in 2021. “It’s a little something I advise for people to protect the legacy of their land,” Craig claims. “It will by no means be developed into some thing that it should not be, no matter who’s in control.”

The Revolving Land Acquisition Program (RLAP) is one more powerful software in DU’s land-protection toolbox. In scenarios exactly where a landowner is not intrigued in a conservation easement but is eager to offer the land to DU, this application would make funds out there as a result of WAT to receive homes that contain beneficial waterfowl habitat. After DU purchases a assets, it completes any required habitat restoration work and destinations the house less than a conservation easement. Landowners can also make items of real estate to DU.

DU does not usually maintain title to true estate in excess of the extensive expression as a rule, lands acquired via RLAP are finally marketed to another conservation consumer. If the purchaser is a condition or federal agency, the house ordinarily gets to be portion of a community lands system that is open for looking and other recreational things to do. DU will also promote to non-public landowners, these types of as ranchers, who can properly control shielded wetland and grassland habitats when applying the land to elevate cattle.

At periods, DU acquires land on behalf of a state or federal company spouse. When an company can not assemble money promptly adequate to invest in a wanted residence, WAT can stage in, acquire the house, and maintain it for that associate right until resources are allotted and ownership can be transferred. These styles of acquisitions are getting ever more prevalent. In DU’s Southern Location, for example, a home that DU procured in 2021 was just lately transferred to the South Carolina Department of Organic Resources (SCDNR). The 1,005-acre tract, recognized as River Oaks, is situated alongside the Waccamaw River in Horry County and consists of a assortment of habitats, which include forested wetlands, blackwater streams, and blended pine-hardwood forests.

Beneath SCDNR management, River Oaks will be included to the Waccamaw River Heritage Preserve and Wildlife Administration Location. It will present a wide range of added benefits, like habitat connectivity alongside the river access to recreational things to do these kinds of as hunting, fishing, and paddling and considerably-wanted flood mitigation.

WAT currently retains 144 parcels—encompassing about 33,000 acres—that are in different stages of restoration or defense by way of RLAP. To date, extra than 100,000 acres have been acquired. Proceeds from assets product sales go again into a Habitat Revolving Fund to be applied for long run acquisitions. This fund also gets contributions from key donors and other expenditure partners who operate with WAT.

WAT’s fundraising toughness is vital to increasing DU’s capability for land security, as much more alternatives to invest in land exist than DU presently has the cash to purchase. WAT’s group of trustees is ready to fulfill the obstacle, says WAT Vice Chairman Doug Oberhelman. “WAT is definitely a quite committed team of folks who not only look soon after the belief lands of DU but also raise important resources desired to maintain huge habitats,” Oberhelman observes. “And which is genuinely what WAT will be very good at in the foreseeable future.”

Critical to WAT’s fundraising achievement is its broader concentrate on ecosystem expert services that wetlands supply, this sort of as safeguarding drinking water high-quality and mitigating impacts of local climate adjust. Many corporations now have environmental, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives that aim in element on producing investments in efforts to handle environmental issues. “We can give ESG initiatives a purer way to look at investing in h2o, wetlands, conservation, and habitat,” Oberhelman points out. “WAT is apolitical and is entirely committed to wetlands and drinking water. That’s all we definitely do, and it’s a little something everyone can concur with. And simply because so lots of other species of birds and other animals use the exact same nesting and resting parts that waterfowl do, investing in wetlands and drinking water is a large gain for everybody.”