Water Quality and Quantity:
- Land overlying aquifers and aquifer recharge areas, especially if identified as prime,
- Frontage on surface waters (rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds),
- Wetlands, flood plains, riparian zones, and other lands critical to water quality or recharge within the watershed.
Forest and Agricultural Resources:
- Substantial acreage of productive forest and/or agricultural land,
- Historic forest and agricultural land,
- Unique forest species or communities,
- Land that will reduce the fragmentation of these forest and/or agricultural lands,
- Land that will preserve or promote forest or agricultural types or diversity.
Wildlife Habitat and Plant Communities:
- Land containing ecologically significant or rare natural communities,
- Land that contributes to large tracts of undeveloped habitat and corridors for wildlife migration,
- Land that increases the diversity of contiguous natural communities,
- Land that offers significant habitat for endangered, threatened or species of conservation concern.
Community Value:
- Land with existing or potential trail corridors,
- Land that provides or contains scenic value,
- Land which preserves the region's rural and historical heritage,
- Land which provides public access for low impact recreational opportunities.
Among lands with significant conservation values, RES will favor properties that:
- Abut, enlarge, or provide linkages to previously protected land,
- Have community support through Master Plans, referenda, or other public expressions,
- Are subject to an immediate threat of change of use,
- Are available under unique circumstances that are not likely to occur again,
- Are important to the local community,
- Would be a stimulus for future protection projects.
The following may disqualify a land protection project from consideration by RES:
- Hazardous waste contamination or potential contamination
- Title problems, including lack of mortgage subordination
- Distance, location, or other site characteristics that prevent adequate monitoring
- Significant violations of federal, state, or local regulations or accepted best management practices
- Potential for another, more appropriate organization to provide protection
- A Landowner insists on provisions that RES believes would seriously diminish the property's conservation values or would make monitoring extremely difficult
- Conflict of interest
- Anticipated costs in time or money that do not have matching resources in the organization now or in the expected future