Members of the local land conservation community are hailing renewal of a tax incentive for private landowners to preserve their property that was included din the recently concluded “fiscal cliff” budget negotiations in Congress.

The tax incentives benefit those landowners, especially working family farmers and ranchers, who preserve their land with a voluntary conservation agreement. The incentive, which had expired at the end of 2011, was a boon to private conservation efforts while it was in effect between 2006 and 2011, said Molly Morrison, president of the Natural Lands Trust (NLT), the Delaware County-based land conservation organization.

“Nationwide, the incentive is credited with a 30 percent increase in the number of acres preserved each year,” Morrison said Monday. “At a time when public investments in open space have been reduced drastically, the incentive is a cost-effective way to encourage landowners—regardless of their means—to consider conservation as an option.”