GALT forever preserves land use for owners

Landowners looking for a way to make sure their property is forever used they way they want have an advocate in the Georgia-Alabama Land Trust.

Katherine Eddins, executive director of the non-profit GALT, told the Rotary Club Wednesday the trust helps conserve 420,000 acres across the two states and serves to protect and steward the land.

“We’re in the relationship business,” Eddins said. The trust works with landowners to set up binding legal agreements stating how they want their land used even after it passes into other hands.

“We are a conservation organization. We’ve been in business for 26 years,” she told the group. “We primarily protect private land. We help landowners put provisions in place on their land to ensure that their land will always be available for those productive uses for agriculture, forest production and wildlife habitat.”

According to the map Eddins distributed, the trust works with many landowners in the Black Belt area as well as across Alabama and Georgia. The greatest concentration of their clients in Alabama are in the west central and northeast parts of the state.

The trust employs 20 staff, including foresters and wildlife managers who work with landowners. Headquarters are in north Alabama.

“We maintain a relationship over time to make sure that regardless of who the owner is of that property that that conservation and agreement is carried out,” She said.

“The main thing we do is protect land and then steward those lands, but we are a conservation organization. We are a member of the conservation community. We work a lot with other non-profits and government projects in towns and cities and suburban areas.”

The trust does a lot of work on trails and preserves and work with counties are looking for partners on projects.

The trust also is a partner with the Department of Defense. For about 10 years it has been working on 40,000 acres around Ft. Stewart to buffer the Army installation “from incompatible uses.”

There are tax incentives for owners who put their lands in a trust, Said Eddins. Usually a landowner will have an appraisal done on the property, and putting the land in trust often diminishes the value of the property. The owner gets a tax deduction for doing that.

“There are really nice tax incentives built into the tax code for people who want to protect their land,” she said.

Eddins said GALT helps protect the state’s high priority habitats and waters, preserves greenspace in cities for wildlife habitat, watershed health and scenic enjoyment. It also supports agricultural initiatives to protect important soils and sustain agricultural economics.