Easement monitoring is the ongoing process of making sure the purpose and restrictions of each individual conservation easement are being upheld. It is a cooperative process between the Mountain Conservation Trust of Georgia and the landowner. 

The first step in conservation easement monitoring is preparing a baseline documentation report. This report is a collection of maps, photographs, and written descriptions of the property, its natural resources, and the conservation values that are being protected. It is meant to serve as a reference that all future monitoring efforts will compare in order to determine if any unacceptable changes have occurred. 

After the baseline documentation report is complete, the Trust can begin its regular monitoring program. By integrating geographic information systems (GIS) software into our land conservation, we have been able to spatially divided all protected lands into three specific areas: 1) Acceptable Development Areas (ADA), 2) Resource Protection Areas (RPA), and 3) Open Areas (OA).

Once we have accomplished this task using GIS, it is necessary to transpose the protected areas from the virtual world to real world. Using global positioning systems (GPS) equipment and our cadre of volunteers, we delineate the boundaries of each protection protocol on the ground using area-specific placards.

Once established, our conservation easements are monitored yearly using a combination of satellite imagery, aerial photography, and ground visits.