The Trouble with Time: Influencing the Conservation Choices of Future Generations

Thompason scrutinizes Julia Mahoney’s article “Perpetual Restrictions on Land and the Problem of the Future”, to see whether conservation easements and other existing efforts to conserve land across generations are quite as troubling as she suggests. Thompson argues that by shifting the decision-making authority over future land uses from a single private landowner to a land trust or various segments or representatives of the public, it is less likely for the land to be developed but still leaved the ultimate decision to future generations. He explores justifications for why one generation may want to make future developments more difficult and asks how society should balance the potential benefits of perpetual conservation easements against the possible costs to future adaptability.