Colorado Conservation Tax Exchange Program:

In 1999, the Colorado state legislature passed the Colorado Conservation Tax Exchange Program, which conserves open spaces and agricultural lands by exchanging development rights for lesser tax liabilities. The law gives state income tax credits to property owners who donate development rights to a land trust; then allows the credits to be transferred to a brokerage or sold directly to individuals or corporations with heavy tax liabilities, if the landowner can't use the entire credit. Credit buyers save at least 10 percent on their state income tax bills.

Almost all of the state's 38 land trusts use the program, and many farmers and ranchers who have been negotiating with trusts for years are finally placing conservation easements on their lands, now that the program's criteria are firmly ironed out.

"We think this legislation is the best thing that has ever happened to agricultural land owners," Lynne Sherrod of the Colorado Cattlemen's Agricultural Land Trust told the Denver Post. "Now landowners can keep their property in production and hand it down to their families."

Lamb L. and Queneau P. (Mar/Apr 2004) Elk Country Review Bugle 21(2) 87.