Brown presents her thesis that private parties should have a common law property interest in conservation easements sufficient to confer standing to seek injunctive relief. She briefly describes the history and rationales underlying the creation and perpetuation of conservation easements and the close relationship between preservation and a strong private property regime, discusses challenges to perpetual conservation easements under the doctrine of changed conditions as well as the importance of private-party standing to the defense of conservation easements, and considers efficiency and social justice arguments in favor of a restricted application of the doctrine of changed conditions. She demonstrates that decentralizing property ownership interests by enforcing property owners’ decisions to burden their property with perpetual conservation easements is consistent with a democratic property system.
