Hutchison Conservation Easement
This 46-acre conservation easement was donated to Yamhill SWCD during November of 2006. Ron and Connie Hutchison have lived on their property located a mile outside Carlton since 1994. They wished to protect wildlife and native plant habitats, provide open space and provide watershed protection for future generations. Their easement details future building limitations, forestry and farm management guidelines, and specifies protected areas.
One of the native prairie remnants that are located on the Hutchison property.
Protection of large oaks and oak woodlands was important to the Hutchisons.
To complete the conservation easement the Hutchison’s received planning assistance from SWCD staff Tim Stieber and Dean O’Reilly. They relied heavily on Portland land use attorney Nancy Murray for conservation easement document preparation. The idea to place a conservation easement on their property “developed over time” admits Connie. The couple initially worked with USDA’s Rob Tracey on management of highly erodible soils and planted most of those soils to trees – a switch from annual cropping and grazing. Next they began to learn more about managing their oak woodland at SWCD and OSU workshops and through their own research and networking. They saw the tremendous wildlife value provided by their oak woodland and observed over 70 species of birds and mammals there over the past few years. After learning about conservation easements as a tool to protect their land at a workshop they began the long process of developing a document with the desired balance of protections and flexibility for future managers of the land.