Easement NCED FL 08282020

<p><span style='font-size:9.5pt; font-family:&quot;Verdana&quot;,sans-serif; color:#000020;'>The goal of the NCED is to
provide a comprehensive picture of the privately owned conservation easement
lands, recognizing their contribution to America's natural heritage, a vibrant
economy, and healthy communities. Conservation easements are legal agreements
voluntarily entered into between landowners and conservation entities (agencies
or land trusts) for the express purpose of protecting certain societal values
such as open space or vital wildlife habitats. In some cases landowners
transfer &quot;development rights&quot; for direct payment or for federal and
state tax benefits. NCED shows a comprehensive picture of privately owned
conservation easement lands in the U.S. The NCED will allow better strategic
planning for conservation and development by merging data on land protection
with biodiversity and resources, improving ecological and economic plans and
investments. State and regional planners and managers will appreciate this
dataset as it provides critical contextual information for their work.
Institutions responsible for national and international reporting will find
this database full of reliable, accurate information for their purposes. The
scientific and conservation community will similarly benefit from having this
standardized base map to carry out their research and planning objectives. The
NCED project partners would like to thank the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and
Communities for their leadership and forethought for putting the NCED team
together and for the initial funding that allowed the NCED to be formed.
Additional support for the NCED project was provided by the Gaylord and Dorothy
Donnelley Foundation; the Knobloch Family Foundation; the Graham Foundation and
the USDA Forest Service, State and Private Forestry. We would also like to
thank Greg Schildwachter for his leadership skills in guiding the project
partners through the initial two-year journey. While the NCED partners were
responsible for aggregating conservation easements from across the country, the
NCED database would not have been successful without the cooperation of many
federal, state, and local agencies, regional and state data repositories, and
individual land trusts. We would like to thank the many state and federal
agencies and local land trusts that took part in this endeavor. In addition, we
would like to provide specific acknowledgement of the following organizations
for their provision of state-wide, regional or national data: COMap - Colorado
State University; Clemson University, David Holman - Greater Chicago area
protected lands; Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission; Florida Natural
Areas Inventory; GreenInfo - California Protected Areas Database; Kansas
Natural Heritage Inventory; Kentucky Natural Heritage Program; Maine State
Planning Office; Maryland Environmental Trust; Montana Natural Heritage
Programs, University of Montana in partnership with the Montana State Library;
Nebraska Natural Heritage Program, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission; The
Nature Conservancy; Utah Conservation Data Center, State of Utah Natural
Resources, Division of Wildlife Resources; Virginia Natural Heritage Program,
Department of Conservation and Recreation; Natural Resources Conservation
Service; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; U.S. Forest Service. protection,
conservation, easements, protected lands theme Downloadable Data Please note that,
by downloading or viewing this data, no right has been created to access lands
with conservation easements. Most conservation easements are not open to the
public. Entering an area that is not open to the public subjects an individual
to possible sanctions for trespass, as determined by the state in which the
easement is located. The National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) layer
was created using a variety of sources and may contain both location and
attribute errors. The NCED database was developed for conservation planning
purposes and should not be used for legal purposes. Certain easement boundaries
are tracked by NCED but have been withheld from public use. These easements
will not appear in the downloaded GIS data or the map viewer. Please contact
the aggregator for your area of interest for more information.NCED makes no
representation or warranty of any kind regarding this material, data and
information, including, but not limited to, the accuracy of the material, data
and information or its suitability for any purpose. </span></p>