March 28, 2024

Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation presents on land protection

Land projects director Ross Baxter from the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation wanted to convey the importance of preserving Iowa’s land.

The mission for the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation and the focal point for Baxter’s presentation during the Jasper County Conservation’s Older Wiser Livelier Seniors (OWLS) meeting was the value of land preservation throughout Iowa and the various ways that can be done.

“Our mission is to protect and restore Iowa’s land, water and wildlife,” Baxter said.

According to Baxter, the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation has been in operation for 40 years and throughout that time it has been able to preserve large amounts of land in Iowa from being developed.

“Over the last 40 years, we have been able to protect 173,000 acres in Iowa permanently,” Baxter said.

There are many ways the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation is able to protect land including the prairies seen throughout the state. Baxter’s presentation centered around the importance of this protection.

“There is a prairie here in Jasper County on 17 acres that has more than 150 species just on that property and that’s just plants,” Baxter said.

Throughout Baxter’s presentation, there were points about the many ways landowners can work with the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation on protecting their land and the reasons for doing so.

“We used to have a little tagline, ‘For those who follow.’ So a lot of the work we are doing is for those generations in the future that aren’t here yet,” Baxter said.

Baxter explained different ways this can be done including conservation easements, donations and bargain sales among other options that are available for land owners to use. The easements keep a restriction on the property that keeps it the way the owner wants it.

“The big thing about conservation easements is they keep land in private ownership so it can be passed down to further generations ... but if it’s sold, that restriction stays on the property,” Baxter said. “It’s your property just like it’s always been it just has this added protection on the backside.”

While the easements were just one way of the conservation of land in Iowa, Baxter outlined other avenues such as donating the land to the foundation itself and the benefits of this including no tax burden or management burden.

“A donation would be to outright donate the property ... That is something that is irrevocable once you make that gift there is kind of no going back,” Baxter said. “There are tax benefits to doing that.”

While there was plenty of discussion on the various ways landowners can protect their land, the underlying theme was the importance this particular mission holds in protecting land that holds so much history.

“We see it as critical because it is preserving a natural heritage that otherwise is lost,” Baxter said.

Jasper County Conservation Naturalist Katie Cantu added, “A lot of people want to do something and they just don’t know the right path to go to protect their land and preserve it for future generations ... This was very informative and hopefully that word gets out.”

Contact Dustin Teays at 641-792-3121 ext. 6533 or dteays@newtondailynews.com