Our modest ranch lies near the mouth of Gallatin Canyon. It’s 10 miles from Bozeman -- an easy 40-minute bike ride -- and 27 miles north of the Big Sky turnoff. A mile and a half of the West Gallatin Canal winds through it, and Wortman Creek cuts through the pasture just south of our house. A spring creek and a series of wooded ponds nestle between the creek and the canal. We hold 1866, 1882, and more recent water rights. An island in the valley’s archipelago of open land, with views of the Spanish Peaks, ours is prime development land.

With trees, irrigated hay and cropland, and range, this land and water is a magnet for wildlife. Due to decades of vigilance, professional consultations, and control, there are few noxious weeds. We hope to preserve it for agriculture and wildlife long after we’re gone.

To this end, we worked for several years with the late Scott Doss, a landscape architect (whom we miss greatly). Our goal was to design conservation easements to protect the agricultural and wildlife values on 96 percent of the land.

A conservation easement is a restriction placed on a piece of property to protect its resources, in our case agriculture and wildlife. It’s a legally binding agreement between a landowner and a conservation organization or public agency, whereby the landowner keeps the land and most of its resources, but gives up development rights. The easement ensures the land’s permanent protection while leaving its use and management in private hands.

Conservation easements, in both acreage and quantity, are experiencing exploding growth. Currently, easements protect more than seven million acres in the United States, or just larger than Massachusetts; that’s a 169 percent increase since 2000 and a fifteen-fold increase since 1990. In 2003, conservation easements numbered 17,847, and were growing at a rate of 2,500 new easements per year.

Scott designed three small, unobtrusive, and limited building sites on three large parcels, each in harmony with its topography. It was his last project and I believe he was proud of the result.

The neighboring land lacks similar protection. In the early ’90s, the ranch across the road was subdivided into tasteful 20-acre ranchettes. The old Skipper place south and west of ours has been subdivided and nearly built out. A new development of 100-plus houses was recently announced just SE of our place.

Does the Kelo decision, handed down in June by the Supreme Court, place our land at risk? Should that decision, which permits local governments to condemn property to increase property values and tax returns, cause us to modify our plans and subdivide?

Taxes on agricultural and rangeland are low, and government officials identify many uses for additional revenue. Schools, jail, library -- who knows what’s to come? Conservation easements constrain local government’s ability to collect taxes. There is no doubt that our place would generate far more revenue if it too were subdivided.

Here’s a caution from The American Farmland Trust. “The ruling concerns conservation groups, who question whether the [Kelo] decision might allow communities to take private agricultural land and open space through eminent domain for development projects. ‘With so much farmland on the urban edge and near cities still in steep decline, ex-urban towns could be tempted by this ruling to make farmland available for subdivisions,’ said American Farmland Trust President Ralph Grossi.”

The Kelo decision clearly threatens private property rights, particularly property providing little tax revenue. The Fifth Amendment guarantees Americans that private property may only be taken by the government for “public use.” However, the new ruling stretches “public use” to mean “public purpose,” i.e., more taxes and jobs. Kelo et al.’s property was deemed more economically productive as part of a waterfront complex. This will include a hotel, convention center, state park, corporate space, parking area, and 80 to 100 new homes.

While this economic assessment of New London land use values may be correct, the implications for conservation are disturbing.

Individuals base their decisions on information and incentives generated by institutions. When property rights are put at risk, incentives change, and so does behavior. Kelo puts our conservation decisions, and those of many others, at risk. Secure property rights are important on green dimensions, in three senses of the term.