how WildLaw can help

Providing Free Legal Assistance to Help Sustain the Southeast's Forests

Seminars and Training Sessions on Sustainable Forestry

WildLaw staff can come to you or your organization to teach about the benefits of sustainable forestry.

Legal Assistance with Conservation Easements.  WildLaw can assist landowners interested in protecting their forest with a conservation easement by... 

Evaluating property: A WildLaw representative can visit your property to evaluate its ecological, recreation, wildlife or scenic values and assist in finding a suitable land trust to accept an easement Discussing landowner objectives and review alternatives: A WildLaw representative can meet with landowners to discuss the owner's objectives for the property and review the options for uses, restrictions, resource protection and the costs and benefits of a conservation easement. Drafting the easement: A WildLaw attorney can prepare a deed of conservation easement document that reflects the landowner's objectives and the goals of the land trust. (You can read our sample conservation easement to get an idea of what the legal instrument involves.)  This alone could save a landowner more than $3,000 over having to hire a private attorney to do the easement. Helping to obtain an appraisal: If a conservation easement donation is to qualify as a charitable donation for income tax purposes, an appraiser must evaluate the market value of the property before and after the easement. WildLaw and/or the land trust can provide a list of appraisers who have expressed interest in appraising conservation easements.

Legal Assistance for Developing Timber Harvesting Contracts that will Protect a Land Owners Rights and Forest

WildLaw attorneys can help forest landowners prepare contracts which hold a timber company and loggers to a higher standard.  If you plan to have a timber company or contract logger cut trees on your land, you need to have special provisions placed in the logging contract to protect your lands and your rights.  If you do not, then you are at the mercy of the timber company's contract (which is drafted for its benefit, not yours).  Many a landowner who thought logging would be done professionally has found their land decimated when the harvesting was done in an irresponsible manner, and without a contract protecting the landowner, there was no recourse to that landowner