SEAFWA 2018

AUTHORS: John Schellaus, Sarah Hitchner, Cassandra Johnson-Gaither, Mavis Gragg

ABSTRACT: The family-owned land is often the most significant source of intergenerational wealth. It also often has complicated legal challenges, such as heirs’ property, due to the nature of multi-person and intergenerational ownership. Natural Resource (NR) professionals can offer valuable information and connections to landowners. This presentation will give the NR professionals a basic understanding of this valued and complicated land ownership model. Participants will also be equipped with tools for educating and connecting landowners they already serve for agricultural and forestry needs.All Natural Resource professionals can benefit from a better understanding of heir’s property particularly those invested in land ownership resiliency or, at a minimum, tasked with informing landowners in their service territories.My intended outcomes would include actionable items like having the knowledge to discuss these situations with others:• Knowing how to answer key questions when discussing the legacy of their holdings• The best way to communicate with landowners about income generated off the land• Effects of protected species on their land• Forest Management planning options and opportunities• Land legacy and resolving tenure and title problems, knowing the resources that landowners should be offered, etc. • Participants will know how to explain the basic concept of heirs’ property; ways to link to forest and farm management; develop basic materials to provide landowners; and create asset maps that identify a local network of resources for land management.