Will oversee conservation easement transactions and oversight for local nonprofit

Jared Parks

By Josh Davis, Associate Editor

(Feb. 22, 2018) Land Programs Manager Jared Parks is the newest addition to the Lower Shore Land Trust in Snow Hill.

Parks, 43, has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from Lawrence University in Wisconsin and a master of Environmental Studies degree from Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

The Chestertown native most recently spent a decade as a land protection specialist and conservation easement program manager at Eastern Shore Land Conservancy in Easton.

“Conservation easements are permanent restrictions that land owners, usually voluntarily, put onto their property. They run with the deed to the property, so basically they’re perpetual forever, associated with the property – not the landowner that granted the easement,” he said. “They reduce the value of the property by removing some of the rights of the landowner to do something like subdivide it, or develop it in certain ways.”

The position in Snow Hill was created specifically for Parks.

“I needed a change,” he said. “I was at was at ESLC for 11 years and the opportunity came up to come here and get a different perspective of the shore – the northern and mid-shore is a lot different than the southern shore … I get to stay somewhat close to home, but I get to spread out a little bit and get a different perspective on things.”

Parks will oversee conservation easements and transactions, as well as stewardship related to the easements.

“It’s not like we do an easement and everything is done – that’s just the very beginning,” he said. “The easement is recorded in the land record and then every year we go out and work with the landowner to monitor it, take a walk around and take photos and just document that indeed they’re following the agreement that was made.

“Landowners are usually fine to have you out – you just don’t want to mess with their hunting,” Parks added.

He said there is also fiscal responsibility involved, because cash or tax breaks are generally given in exchange for easements.

“You want to make sure that financial obligation is being met, and we didn’t just give somebody money or a tax break and then they continue to do everything that they want to and ignore the easement,” Parks said.

Easements are important in this area, because most habitats and open land on the East Coast is privately owned, Parks said.

“From the 1950s on, sprawl development is running rampant in certain places,” Parks said. “You’re losing your farm fields, you’re losing your forests, you’re losing your open areas.

“Delmarva is blessed with some of the best [agricultural] land in the county, especially in the eastern part of the country. And it’s one of the most open, undeveloped stretches of eastern seaboard that’s left,” he continued. “The I-95 corridor has eaten up a lot of land … that stretches from Maine to Florida.

“We’re sort of protected over here, so you can use easements as an economic incentive for landowners to keep their land open and usable, instead of paved over and building a whole bunch of houses on it,” Parks said.

That’s also crucial in Worcester, where farming, the resort beaches and other open areas mean so much to the economy.

“People come here to bike and to walk and to see different things – that could be Furnace Town or it could be for hunting or fishing. Those things can’t really happen if you don’t have the open land associated with it,” Parks said. “The reason to come here is not just the strip, the Boardwalk and Thrasher’s Fries – it’s much broader than that. And the more you can offer to people that come here, the more people are going to come here and the more people are going to be able to sustain their livelihoods because of it.”

Because of the Land Trust’s proximity to Sturgis Park, he and Land Trust Executive Director Kate Patton were recently involved in discussions on park development.

“I hope the town sticks with their idea of coming up with a development plan that keeps it open and nice looking and natural, but will bring more people down to the waterfront to see it,” Parks said. “I think there’s a lot of good ideas percolating around those features. There’s towns that I’ve been to where you can have that great river walk … and they’ve let people run roughshod over it.

“I think there’s some great competitive advantages that towns like Snow Hill or Berlin have that give a different option to the area than Ocean Pines, Ocean City, Rehoboth, Bethany Beach life,” Parks continued. “That has its place, but not everybody is looking directly for that. Some people do want to visit the small towns and have a quiet canoe trip or go on a birdwatching adventure, or come to the small-town festivals.

“There’s just a vibrancy that maybe was lacking in a lot of these communities over the past 20, 30, 40 years, where there seems to be a resurgence of enjoyment of these small towns. And I think the small towns are made stronger by the lands that surround them,” Parks said.

Lower Shore Land Trust, according to a statement on its website, is dedicated to preserving rural lands, to promoting vibrant towns and to building a more healthy and connected Eastern Shore.

For more information, visit www.lowershorelandtrust.org.