Well aware that millions of biodiversity-rich, forested acres lie in private hands, conservation groups in Latin America are developing creative ways to encourage landowners to safeguard the forests they own. The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a U.S. organization active throughout Latin America, is working with local groups to promote "conservation easements," self-designed legal contracts that stipulate how landowners can use their property. While conservation easements are still new in the region, they are growing in popularity.

With help from TNC, the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Center (CEDARENA in its Spanish acronym), first established a conservation easement in Costa Rica eight years ago and now has fostered 60 contracts with private landowners, protecting some 7,000 acres. CEDARENA's Carlos Manuel Chacón notes that landowners have different motives for putting land-use restrictions on their properties. "Some really want to be sure that the land they are protecting today continues to be protected in 40 or 50 years, even after their death," he explains. "Others want to protect their land but are also interested in receiving something in exchange."

CEDARENA experts will help landowners survey their acreage and devise a management plan that might, for example, keep much of the property in untouched forest, while permitting a few homes, low-impact farming, or sustainable logging on another portion. The agreed-upon plan is written up as a contract and transferred to anyone who might purchase the land, right along with the deed to the property.

In Costa Rica, Zdenka Piskulich manages TNC's Latin American conservation easement program, which has helped establish easements in Guatemala, Ecuador, Paraguay, and Mexico. She recalls that the first easement in Mexico was designed for a nature-loving landowner in Veracruz, who needed to derive some income from his property, comprised of ecologically important cloud forest. "His easement contract sanctioned a few tourist cabins, a small restaurant, and an organic farm on his land," she says.

With help from TNC, the Natura Foundation in Colombia is about to establish the country's first conservation easement. According to Natura's Nancy Vargas, the contract will protect property in an eastern mountain range that is blanketed with ancient oak trees and provides fresh water to 7.000 residents. "The conservation easement concept is still new here," she says. "So we have to educate property owners that the services their land can provide are not solely economical." @