Letter from Frank Smith
Land Trusts – October 2000 – Colorado Central Magazine
Editors:
Dave Skinner’s comments on The Nature Conservancy [in the September edition] are so completely wrong I hardly know where to begin correcting him. It, like most land trusts, DOES “actually take direct physical or fiscal care of the land it supposedly preserves.” It does NOT “act as nothing more than a high-dollar real estate and lobbying firm that temporarily acquires land…”
It ALSO serves as a middleman or go-between when a landowner wants to sell faster than a governmental agency can move, and ALWAYS with a binding commitment that the land will be PRESERVED by the acquiring agency. It maintains a staff of trained scientists and land stewards to assure and maintain the biological values of its properties, as well as lawyers specializing in conservation easements.
As for “quickly sells at a profit,” I hope the IRS doesn’t hear about that, since TNC is certified as a non-profit 501(c)3 organization and contributions to it are tax-deductible. As a matter of fact, Dave owes The Nature Conservancy an apology and a retraction, but I’m sure they would be just as happy to receive a generous check and the admission that he was just uninformed, not malicious.
In my former life, B.C. (before Colorado) I served for several years as Chairman of the Texas Nature Conservancy, and since moving to Frisco I have served on the board of the Continental Divide Land Trust, which holds conservation easements on a number of properties in Summit County.
I have participated personally in many land trust transactions for both organizations, and would be glad to give Dave a tour of both TNC and CDLT properties in this area — for a small tax-deductible fee, of course. We could discuss our differing views about motorized vehicles on trails, a subject (unlike TNC) that he may know as much about as I do.
Frank Smith Frisco
