Land

Carol Horne pointed me to The Land Trust Alliance of British Columbia as an example of how the "land trust system" is working elsewhere.

There's also a report on their website [PDF] on the "National Ecogift Monitoring Survey" the introduction to which says:

Through the design and implementation of a survey focused on Canada’s land trust community, questions related to the common practices, methods, and extent of monitoring activities were addressed. Of primary concern were the monitoring practices related to properties donated to land trusts through Environment Canada’s Ecological Gifts program. The goals of this survey were to determine what protocols and methods are currently being used by Canada’s land trust community; if these methods vary between the Ecological Gifts (Ecogifts) and non-Ecogift properties; and to produce a “roadmap” for the design, implementation and adoption of standards related to Ecogift monitoring that would satisfy both Environment Canada and the land trust community as a whole.

When the Land Trust sells land, or purchases or has donated the development rights on land, a “restrictive covenant” is registered with the deed to the property. The covenant “runs with the land” so that its restrictions apply not only to the present owner, but also to any future owner.

A sample of the restrictive covenant, similar to the one we have used for the purchase/sale of land at Cape Tryon, Cousins Shore and Park Corner is available as a PDF file and as a Word file.