Gaps between land conservation ideals and practices: Preserving rural character by “keeping Danby Danby”

Background/Question/Methods

Conservation can be challenging in areas where land is predominantly under private ownership.  Here regulatory approaches give way to voluntary approaches that rely on collaboration and negotiation among conservation organizations, local governments, and willing landowners.  Much of this new work in non-regulatory land conservation takes place in peri-urban fringe areas, where open space often occurs as either “working landscapes” valued for their economic productivity or as “amenity landscapes” valued for their aesthetic attributes.  One widely-cited positive attribute of open spaces in peri-urban fringe areas is “rural character,” an ambiguous concept that could be used to represent working landscapes and amenity landscapes alike.  The fact that rural character could mean very different things to the diverse users and inhabitants of landscapes at the peri-urban fringe makes the term problematic for land-use planning and conservation policy.  We explored the conceptualization and implementation of rural character in the context of an incipient local land conservation program in the peri-urban Town of Danby in upstate New York, USA.  The study was based on three years of involvement with a local conservation commission and in-depth interviews with 19 local landowners. 

Results/Conclusions

Our results show widespread agreement among landowners and conservation agents on the importance of preserving rural character in the process of land conservation.  However, we found notable disagreement on how to implement rural character preservation.  In other words, we found a gap between conservation ideals and conservation practice as regards this central land conservation attribute.  This is important because the apparent harmony in conceptualizing rural character as a conservation priority at the planning stage can obscure difficulties that will emerge later during the implementation of a land conservation program.  This research thus underscores the need for frank, in-depth dialog early on among landowners and planners about local landscapes, land conservation objectives, and the practical steps needed to realize them.