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A friend has sent you a link to an article found on FlatheadBeacon.com. To read the full text of this article online, click here: http://www.flatheadbeacon.com/articles/article/helping_trophy_ranchers/2140/ ARTICLE EXCERPT: The end of 2007 saw a flurry of new conservation easements in Montana and Flathead County. Good news? Perhaps not. First, the main reason for this flurry isn’t idealism. It’s money. Stuffed way down in the Pensions Protection Act of 2006, apparently by Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., is Section 1206 covering “provisions relating to exempt organizations.” Since the mid-1970s, federal law has allowed parties donating conservation easements to shield up to 30 percent of their adjusted gross income from income tax for up to five years or until the value of the easement is amortized. This law first came about because land trusts (primarily The Nature Conservancy, which today is still the largest) realized they would never be able to “save” all the land they wanted by actually buying it. They therefore prevailed upon Congress to pass tax breaks for donated easements – in effect, playing the time-honored political game of using “Other People’s Money.”