Washington and Orange counties, Vermont

We do not own this land. We hold what its owners promised about it.

A conservation easement is a document, not a transfer. The deed, the taxes, the hayfield, and the right to sell all stay with the family who signed it. What changes is that the development rights are gone, permanently, and somebody has to check every year that the terms are being kept. That is us.

We are not a parks department, a state agency, or a place you can visit. None of the land in the register below is open to the public unless its owner chose to open it.

Talk to us about your land What an easement actually does

A mown hayfield running up to a wooded ridge under flat grey cloud, with a small tractor parked at the far edge. — Working hayfield and woodlot, the kind of land under easement here. Illustrative — not a Cedar Line property, and none of the land we hold is open to the public.

The monitoring register

Every easement, walked every year, and what the walk found.

Season of 2026. 2 of 7 rows carry a follow-up, and both are written out rather than summarised away.

Easements held by Cedar Line Land Trust, with the date of the most recent monitoring visit, what it found, and who owns the land
Ref	Town	Land	Signed	Last walked	Finding	Owned by
WA-014	Calais	Sugarbush and northern hardwood	2009	June 2026	Terms kept. New tubing run follows the existing lane. Status: terms kept.	Family, third generation
WA-021	Berlin	Hayfield and hedgerow	2012	July 2026	Terms kept. Status: terms kept.	Working dairy
OR-003	Washington	Mixed woodlot	2014	August 2026	Firewood cut exceeded the notice threshold. Owner filed the notice retroactively; forester's plan now on file. Status: follow-up in progress.	Individual owner
WA-027	Middlesex	River meadow and floodplain	2017	June 2026	Terms kept. Bank plantings from 2021 have taken. Status: terms kept.	Two households, shared deed
OR-008	Brookfield	Pasture and sugarbush	2019	September 2026	Terms kept. Farm stand at the road is within the allowed farm-use area. Status: terms kept.	Family, second generation
WA-031	Marshfield	Working woodlot	2021	July 2026	Boundary blazes faded on the north line. Re-marking scheduled with the owner for spring. Status: follow-up in progress.	Individual owner
OR-011	Chelsea	Hillside pasture	2023	August 2026	Terms kept. First monitoring visit since signing. Status: terms kept.	New owner, purchased 2024

The right-hand column is the one worth reading twice. It is never us. How a monitoring visit works.

Four things people assume an easement does.

Can the public walk on it?

Only if you write that in. Most of our easements grant no public access at all, and the land stays as private as it was the day before you signed. If you do want a trail across it, that is a separate paragraph you choose to add — it is never a condition of the easement.

Your land stays yours to post, gate, or leave open.

Can you still farm and log?

Yes. Farming continues without our involvement. Timber harvest continues under a forest management plan, and above a threshold written into your easement you give us notice first — notice, not permission. Nobody at Cedar Line has ever told a landowner they may not cut firewood.

Working land keeps working.

Can you build?

Farm and forestry structures, yes. Houses are the part an easement actually restricts: most of ours reserve a small building envelope you choose at signing and extinguish the development rights on the rest. That reserved envelope is the negotiation, and it happens before anything is signed.

You pick the envelope. We record what is left.

Can you sell it?

Yes, at any time, to anyone, without asking us. The easement travels with the deed, so the next owner takes the land with the same terms. We ask sellers to tell us so we can walk the new owner through what they are buying, but that is a courtesy and not a requirement.

Sell freely. The restriction goes with the land, not with you.

Cedar Line has been holding easements in these two counties since 2009. We are small enough that the person who walks your boundary is the person you signed with, and slow enough that we would rather you took a year over the decision than a month.

If the land has been in the family a while, the conversation usually starts with succession rather than conservation. That is a fine place to start. Bring the accountant.

Start a conversation

Or ring Marisol Reyes directly on (802) 555-0111.