Landowner Resources

The Compatible Lands Foundation (CLF) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to promote the conservation, restoration, and preservation of land and natural resources and to foster compatible land uses among both public and private landowners.  CLF is the land trust partner for select installations across the United States under the Department of Defense (DoD)’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) program.

The REPI program is a key tool for combating encroachment that can limit or restrict military training, testing, and operations. The REPI Program protects the military missions by helping remove or avoid land-use conflicts near installations and addressing regulatory restrictions that inhibit military activities.

A conservation easement under the REPI is a voluntary legal agreement between a willing landowner and CLF that permanently preserves compatible land use, in order to allow military training activities to continue on these local bases, while also protecting the lands rural characteristics and working lands.  Landowners retain many of their rights, including the right to own and use the land, sell it and pass it on to their heirs.  However, an easement under the REPI program will include some restrictions to guard against incompatible uses.

What is considered an ‘incompatible use’ varies by installation.  For example, maintaining dark skies around Hill Air Force Base in Utah, is critical in order to allow U.S. military pilots to sharpen their combat skills under night flying conditions.  Given this priority, CLF easements for lands adjacent to Hill AFB may include restrictions on lighting to ensure dark skies training conditions are maintained.