Easement Exchanges for Agricultural Conservation: A Case Study Under the Williamson Act in California

Abstract

Rapid population growth has made farmland conservation a concern throughout the world, leading state and local decision-makers to conserve agricultural land through a variety of policy tools. Among the most prominent strategies in recent years has been the direct purchase of development rights or the acquisition of agricultural conservation easements through purchase, donation, or exchange. However, the effectiveness of conservation easements has been questioned recently by scholars while public accountability for their adoption has been relatively thin. This article evaluates implementation of California’s Williamson Act contract cancellation and easement exchange program (WAEE) as a mitigation measure against the loss of agricultural land, offering important insights into the strengths and weaknesses of exchanges as a policy tool. We recommend a significant modification to the existing structure of the program that should also be considered by other jurisdictions exploring easement exchanges as a means of conserving agricultural land. Cancellation fees from non-exchanges should be transferred directly to the state budget for the acquisition of conservation easements in the region in which contracts are being cancelled, thereby creating an incentive for the state conservation agency to conduct a more critical evaluation of the proposed easement exchange in comparison to direct acquisition of other conservation easements.