Virginia Department
of Forestry

If you are interested in applying for an easement to be held by the Virginia Department of Forestry, please complete the Open-Space Easement Application found in the “Additional Resources” section at the bottom of this page and submit the application via email to the Forestland Conservation Program. One of our staff will contact you.

Deadlines

Donated Easement

• For “donated easements”, where 100% of the value of the easement will be donated by the landowner to the Commonwealth, VDOF reviews applications three times per year.
• Deadlines for submitting these applications are January 31, May 31, and September 30.

Grant-Funded Easement

• Parties interested in pursuing a “grant-funded easement”, where the applicant plans to seek grant funding to directly compensate the landowner for all or part of the easement’s value or associated transaction costs (appraisal, survey or other due diligence costs), must complete and submit the VDOF Open-Space Easement Application at least eight weeks prior to the grant-deadline, unless the grant itself is announced less than 10 weeks before the grant deadline. In the latter case, you must submit the application within two weeks of the grant having been announced.
• These deadlines are established to provide VDOF sufficient time to a) evaluate all easement applications that will be submitted for a particular grant, b) assess the potential conservation value of proposed easements, and c) assess VDOF’s capacity to support the grant applications and subsequent grant management.
• For any one grant opportunity, VDOF may choose to support all, some, or no grant applications.

Additional Resources

Contact Us

For more information or questions, e-mail us or use our contact form.