Establish your policies, procedures and forms

After considering how your organization will decide each stage, you will be able to edit your existing easement monitoring and property inspection policies and procedures to include the special considerations required by remote monitoring.

It is important to draft your policies and procedures to adhere to Practice 11C and Practice 12C of Land Trust Standards and Practices and if seeking accreditation or re-accreditation, meet accreditation requirements.

Land trusts are also advised to draft policies to increase the likelihood of credible, defensible and consistent remote imagery capture, storage and retention. For a detailed discussion, see the Practical Pointer Remote Monitoring: Practices, Limitations and Use in Legal Defense.

When updating your easement monitoring report form to include remote sensing considerations, remember that your forms should adhere to Practice Element 11C2 of Land Trust Standards and Practices and if seeking accreditation or re-accreditation meet accreditation requirements.

At a minimum, a conservation easement monitoring report form should include:

• Identification of the specific conservation easement being monitored

• Monitoring method

• The source of the image and include a snapshot of the image or the original image, depending on how images are sourced by your organization

• Date of image and date the image was reviewed and report completed (no more than three months after image review)

• Identification of the monitor, including qualifications

• Observations relative to the restrictions, reserved rights and conservation values recorded during the inspection

• Observations related to any potential conservation easement violations

In addition, land trusts may want to include the following:

• Monitor’s affiliation, address and signature

• Property owner and location

• Information to substantiate the specific monitoring visit, such as:

  • Description of the area that was observed during the inspection (such as the entire property, eastern boundaries and south road and so forth) and the resolution of each if applicable

  • Information that helps substantiate the monitor’s observations (including substantiation of “no change observed”)

  • Presence or absence of landowner or other party

Monitors should complete all sections of the form and leave no blanks (they can write “not applicable,” if necessary). If they leave sections blank, the form may be deemed incomplete and raise questions in an enforcement or legal action. Some land trusts require a second person from the organization to review and sign the document to ensure that the form is complete and that they take any necessary follow-up actions. Another good quality control practice is to maintain a database that can track the monitoring status of the land trust’s entire easement roster.

Land trusts using remote sensing for inspection of their properties must also follow Practice Element 12C2 of Land Trust Standards and Practices and if seeking accreditation or re-accreditation, meet accreditation requirements.

At a minimum, a property inspection report form should include:

• The source of the image and include a snapshot of the image or the original image, depending on how images are sourced to your organization

• Inspection method

• Date of image and the date the image was reviewed and report completed (no more than three months after image review)

• The name of the property inspected

• Name of the inspector and their qualifications

• Observations related to the property's condition and conservation values

• Observations related to any potential property ownership challenges

The form may be customized to the needs and resources of specific properties and to their respective management plans. For example, a property with an endangered plant species may have indicators of the species’ health included on the form for that property.