On Friday, the Mississippi Forestry Commission (MFC), in partnership with the Land Trust for the MS Coastal Plain (LTMCP), will dedicate Mississippi’s first Forest Legacy Program conservation easement with a ceremony on the banks of the Escatawpa River.
MFC recently purchased a conservation easement on a 518 acre tract of forestland along the Escatawpa River in Jackson County from the Dumont Family, LLC to conserve and protect sensitive natural forestland and wildlife habitat along one of Mississippi’s most scenic black water rivers. A conservation easement is a legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency that permanently limits use of the land in order to protect its conservation values. Under an easement, the landowner retains title and those remaining land rights not specifically conveyed or prohibited in the easement deed.
The Dumont conservation easement was acquired by the MFC in September, in partnership with the LTMCP and the USDA Forest Service with a grant from the USDA Forest Legacy Program. The Dumont easement is the first conservation easement of its kind in Mississippi.
The Forest Legacy Program is a USDA Forest Service program in partnership with the MFC that supports local efforts to protect environmentally sensitive, privately-owned forest lands threatened by conversion to non-forest use through both land acquisition and conservation easements.
From Gulf Live: https://blog.gulflive.com/mississippi-press-living/2012/11/mississippis_first_forest_lega.html