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Prominent players in the debates concerning the removal and relocation of Confederate monuments are the multitude of Confederate heritage organizations. These organizations challenge the removal of Confederate monuments and are frequently successful in their efforts. Often times, these organizations possess a legal interest in the disposition of Confederate monuments either because they have funded the erection of such monuments, worked to maintain monuments, or have residual ownership claims. This Article seeks to highlight the role of Confederate heritage organizations in monument removal and relocation debates. The Authors explore the origins of Confederate monuments, why statues are removed now, the history of heritage organizations, and the operation of such organizations in response to removal attempts. The Authors argue that it is important for communities involved in removal efforts to (1) understand the objectives of heritage groups, (2) understand the history of the monument (3) understand the heritage organizations as an entity, (4) account for the community's goal and long term impacts of removal, and (5) consider the implications of transferring monuments to heritage organizations. Ultimately, the Article encourages communities to become familiar with heritage organizations in order to understand and account for their influence in removal and relocation decisions., INTRODUCTION Confederate heritage organizations have consistently and often successfully challenged removal of Confederate monuments. (1) These groups assert that Confederate monuments represent Southern heritage while minimizing the harms these statues [...]

The National Trust in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland is one of the oldest and most revered private land conservation organizations in the world. While the private land conservation movements [...]

As communities increasingly remove Confederate monuments from public spaces, they must decide what to do with these troubled statues. Given the recent wave of monument removal, we consider how property law and other restrictions impact community decisions on the disposition of monuments removed from public spaces on two levels--by location and future owner. In considering the fate of removed monuments, we profile potential destinations including museums, battlefields, cemeteries, and even storage. Alongside these examples, we discuss how laws constrain (or fail to constrain) the options for new owners and the restrictions on where monuments can be relocated. Even where laws do not constrain their removal choices, communities may choose to relinquish ownership to a Confederate heritage organization (or to another governmental entity) to speed removal. While transferring ownership is initially appealing, surrendering ownership may not be the best long-term decision for a community. Communities can lose control over the display of transferred statues, which fails to address the root of the problem. Where possible, communities should retain ownership (and therefore control) of removed statues or consider how other property law tools, such as transfer agreements, can impose discipline on the new owners. Making considered decisions on both the future display and owner is critical to the overall removal movement and to ensure that the legacy of these troubled statutes is properly addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on importance of land conservation overall, outlining the reasons for focusing conservation efforts on rural lands and what environmental (and other) benefits can be gained in these areas. It mentions federal government mandates conservation through laws like the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. It also mentions ideas of how federal conservation programs could work in conjunction with subnational and private programs to further land conservation goals.

As public Confederate monuments finally begin to come down across tbe nation. we are seeing an emergence of Confederate monuments on private lands. The number of private Confederate monuments is increasing both witb tbe construction of new monuments and, more significantly. the relocation of monuments from public land. This Article explains why private Confederate monuments are likely to be tbe next battleground over these controversial and troubling statues. Through ten detailed examples, we show bow private Confed£ rate monuments emerge and bow communities are responding to tbem. The challenges related to monuments on private land are diferent than those on public lands, and previous activism and research on Confederate monuments is only of limited use in grappling witb tbis categog. As relocated monuments are tbe largest source of new private monuments, tbis Article serves as a cautionag note to communities looking to dispose of their monuments by donating or returning these resources to private groups and encourages communities to fully evaluate the impacts of tbeir removal and relocation plans to ensure tbey do not lead to unintended consequences or create issues for another community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As climate change leads to both internal displacement and mass migrations, we need not only new places for people to live but also new locations for infrastructure projects and other public needs. Some of the most attractive areas for these new land uses are currently unoccupied land, including land set aside for conservation. Numerous laws restrict the availability and possible uses of public conservation land. Individual agreements and property restrictions encumber private conservation land, varying in the ease with which the restrictions can be modified. For example, privately protected areas in the United States are often encumbered with perpetual conservation easements. The rigid rules of such protected areas combined with the increased number of private interests involved make them legally unattractive for land-use change even when they might be socially desirable locations for settlement. This Article examines opportunities and constraints for expanded use of conservation lands to meet climate migrant needs. I explore how these areas could respond to needs that develop in the context of climate change migration and illustrate the dangers of overly rigid land-use laws. Policymakers and conservationists should consider these tensions when drafting agreements and laws. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Confederate monuments have again received increased attention in the aftermath of George Floyd's tragic death in Minneapolis, Minnesota, on May 25, 2020. Momentum and shifting public opinion are working toward the removal of these problematic monuments across the country. This Article seeks to provide insight for monument-removal advocates: specifically focusing on the legal issues associated with the "death" or removal of these monuments, how property law shapes and defines these efforts, and briefly examining what happens to these statues after removal. Our exploration of Confederate monuments reveals that some removal efforts occur outside of legally created processes. Both public and private entities choose to remove monuments in the face of legal barriers that either bar or slow removal. This mismatch between law and action (particularly by public actors) should lead communities to question the laws designed to keep monuments in place and whose voices should be heard during these discussions. Communities must also seriously consider their obligations regarding these monumental legacies and ensure that their removal strategies effectively address the root issues and do not simply relocate the issue to another public forum or community. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This essay examines the controversy regarding confederate monuments and attempts to contextualize this debate within the current preservation framework. While much attention has been paid to this topic over the past year, particularly with regard to "public" monuments, such discussion has generally failed to recognize the varied and complicated property law layers involved--which can fundamentally change the legal requirements for modification or removal. We propose a spectrum or framework for assessing these resources ranging from public to private, and we explore the messy space in-between these poles where most monuments actually fall. By highlighting these categories, we provide an initial introduction of a typology for evaluating confederate monuments, serving as a foundation for an exploration into the nature of property law and monument protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Climate change has significant consequences for land conservation. Government agencies and nonprofit land trusts heavily rely on perpetual conservation easements. However, climate change and other dynamic landscape changes raise questions about the effectiveness and adaptability of permanent conservation instruments like conservation easements. Building upon a study of 269 conservation easements and interviews with seventy conservation-easement professionals in six different states, we examine the adaptability of conservation easements to climate change. We outline four potential approaches to enhance conservation outcomes under climate change: (1) shift land-acquisition priorities to account for potential climate change impacts; (2) consider conservation tools other than perpetual conservation easements; (3) ensure that the terms of conservation easements permit the holder to adapt to climate change successfully; and (4) provide for more active stewardship of conservation lands. There is still a good deal of uncertainty as to the legal fate of a conservation easement that no longer meets its original purposes. Many state laws provide that conservation easements can be modified or terminated in the same manner as traditional easements. Yet conservation easements are in many ways unlike other easements. The beneficiary is usually the public, not merely a neighboring landowner, and the holder is always a nonprofit conservation organization or a government agency. Thus, there is a case to be made for adaptive protection. An overly narrow focus on perpetual property rights could actually thwart efforts to meet adaptation needs over the long term. We call for careful attention to ensuring conservation outcomes in dynamic landscapes over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This Article explores the tension between land conservation and marijuana cultivation in the context of legalization. The legalization of marijuana has the potential to shift the locations of marijuana cultivation. Where cultivation need no longer be surreptitious and clandestine, growers may begin to explore sanctioned growing sites and methods. Thus, the shift to legalization may be accompanied by environmental and landuse implications. Investigating commercial-scale marijuana cultivation, this Article details how, in some ways, legalization can reduce environmental impacts of marijuana cultivation while also examining tricky issues regarding tensions between protected lands and marijuana cultivation. If we treat cultivation of marijuana the same as we treat cultivation of other agricultural crops, we gain stricter regulation of the growing process, including limits on pesticide usage, water pollution, wetland conversion, air pollution, and local land-use laws. Thus, legalization of marijuana should yield environmental benefits. And yet the story is, of course, more complicated than that. The strange status of marijuana as both a federally impermissible use and a stigmatized crop suggests that it will not fall under the same legal regimes as other agricultural products. In the realm of protected agricultural and conservation lands, a particular concern arises for land trusts grappling with proposals for marijuana cultivation. Where landowners receive federal tax benefits or land trusts rely upon federal laws for funding and legitimacy, the decision to grow marijuana on the land could have significant consequences. The Article reaches two main conclusions. First, in the absence of federal regulations, subnational governments should create and implement environmental and land-use regulations governing the cultivation of marijuana to ensure that legal grows do not continue the harmful practices involved with black market marijuana. Second, land trusts and agricultural protection organizations should not become involved with marijuana cultivation in any form while it remains illegal at the federal level. To do so puts both the land and their operations at risk. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land conservation transactions have been the most active component of the conservation movement in the United States for the past three decades. Conservation organizations have acquired property rights--mostly conservation easements--to protect roughly 40 million acres of land nationwide. However, climate change threatens this vast edifice. Climate change means that the resources that land conservation transactions were intended to protect may not persist on the land protected. Options to purchase conservation easements ("OPCEs") have long played a modest but important role in conservation law practice. In the world climate change is creating, with its substantial uncertainties and shifting windows of opportunity, OPCEs can serve more complicated and strategic purposes. This potential would be significantly increased if state legislatures amended current conservation easement enabling statutes to: (1) specifically recognize OPCEs, (2) immunize OPCEs from a range of potential common law challenges, and (3) integrate OPCEs into the burgeoning body of conservation easement law. These statutory amendments would do for OPCEs what conservation easement statutes have done for conservation easements: transform them into an essential multi-purpose tool for conservation in a changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]