The Promise of Protecting Land Forever
Land conservation has always been one of Conservation Law Center’s focus areas. With a combined 60 years of experience, Christian Freitag, our Executive Director, and Bill Weeks, our Board Chair and Founder, have continually improved our legal support of land trusts, helping them do their work better and faster. Over the years, they have crafted a conservation easement template used by land trusts across the country, giving the land trusts more confidence that their promise of “protected forever” will hold. We are proud to say that in the last 15 years we have directly assisted projects totaling over 13,000 acres, worth more than $65 million in Indiana alone.
How do we help land trusts? We give pro bono advice on matters of conservation easement drafting and enforcement, complex real estate transactions, property liabilities, and countless other matters related to running a nonprofit organization. We have worked with nearly every land trust in the state, including some recent projects with Sycamore Land Trust, Red-tail Land Conservancy, and Central Indiana Land Trust.
Cliff Chapman, Executive Director of Central Indiana Land Trust (CILTI) says, “We are so thankful for the years of help from CLC, assisting with the drafting of conservation easements and navigating other legal conservation questions. Their support is so helpful to us.” John Lawrence, Executive Director of Sycamore Land Trust remarked, "CLC's support on a wide range of questions has been invaluable to Sycamore's success for 15 years and counting, and we greatly appreciate Christian, Bill, and the CLC staff for their expertise and conservation leadership." Similar sentiments were relayed by Julie Borgmann, Executive Director of Red-tail Land Conservancy who said Christian Freitag has been a “life line” during a recent conservation project in which some wrinkles arose. Wrinkles always come up!
CLC is committed to ensuring that Indiana’s land conservation community is as strong as it can be, meeting both ecological and organizational needs while ensuring permanence. Preserving Indiana’s land trust acreage as well as the wildlife populations that call it their home will remain a top priority for years to come.