Owenjj3, I know a lawyer who worked with the Nature Conservancy for a few years. One of the purposes of the NC is land acquisition with eventual transfer to either federal or state governments for public use and recreation. There were also tax consequences which hindered tax deductions with direct donations or sales below market value to government. In order to get full benefit of the tax laws, the property had to be transferred to a non-profit corporation such as the Nature Conservancy which would then transfer the land to the government. There are sellers who would for either political or philosophical reasons would rather burn and salt their land than allow the "tree huggers" to get hold of it and would refuse to sell to the NC. The lawyer would set up shell corporations for the NC to make the buys on some properties in order to conceal the actual buyer. Gil
