About Terra Alta
A conservation practice built to move land protection from initial concept through implementation. Terra Alta provides conservation advisory and planning nationwide and specialized real estate brokerage in New Mexico.
One practice across the full process
Terra Alta brings together conservation advisory, spatial analysis, planning, and licensed New Mexico brokerage. This connected expertise allows us to evaluate opportunities, develop practical strategies, identify potential funding, coordinate due diligence, and carry transactions through closing without losing sight of the client’s overall goals.
Terra Alta does not hold conservation easements or administer funding programs, so we are not tied to a particular outcome. The right path may be an easement, a conventional sale, a division among heirs, another transaction structure, or simply waiting.
Every engagement is guided directly by Terra Alta’s principal, Michael Scisco. Over more than twenty years of conservation work, he has helped protect more than 200,000 acres in both lead and supporting roles.
Whether you are planning a conservation program, navigating a land-protection project, buying or selling New Mexico property, or simply evaluating your options, Terra Alta provides experienced guidance focused on your goals from beginning to end.
Why connected expertise matters
Conservation projects often require four distinct capabilities: planning and spatial analysis, conservation strategy, project coordination, and real estate brokerage. When these roles are handled separately, important context can be lost as work passes from one professional to another.
Terra Alta brings these capabilities together in one practice. Clients can engage a single service or combine them when a project benefits from greater continuity.
Planning and spatial analysis
Terra Alta translates conservation goals into defensible criteria, spatial analysis, priority maps, and practical implementation strategies.
More than twenty years of geospatial experience allows us to connect the technical analysis with the real-world questions decision-makers face: what is worth pursuing, what is feasible, and what should happen next.
Conservation strategy
Terra Alta helps clients evaluate what a property can support, which conservation structure best fits their goals, who should hold the easement, what rights should be retained, and how the project may be funded.
Experience working with landowners and within the land-trust community helps us develop strategies that account for organizational requirements, long-term stewardship, and the practical needs of the property owner.
Project coordination
Conservation transactions depend on appraisals, surveys, title work, legal documents, funding requirements, baseline documentation, and negotiations occurring in the right sequence.
Terra Alta coordinates the schedule, professionals, documents, and decisions so issues are identified early and the project continues moving toward completion.
New Mexico real estate brokerage
As a licensed New Mexico Qualifying Broker, Michael represents sellers and buyers through pricing, marketing, negotiation, due diligence, and closing.
This brokerage experience is especially valuable for conserved and complex properties, where easement terms, leases, access, divided interests, and other conditions must be understood and explained—not simply disclosed.
The advantage is not that every client needs all four services. It is that when a project crosses from planning into strategy or from conservation into a real estate transaction, the work can remain connected.
Some examples of our work
Developed a $13.5 million Forest Legacy Program application for a public lands acquisition in North Carolina
Built the baseline record for a conservation easement of over 18,400 acres carrying nearly 166 miles of river frontage on Maine’s Machias River
Helped develop the prioritization model inside Travis County’s Parks Comprehensive Plan, delivered through Mend Collaborative
Mapped conservation priorities across 18 counties of the Texas Hill Country for the Hill Country Alliance
Maintain the global mapping database of protected dark-sky places for DarkSky International
Advise the Village of Corrales on the farmland easement projects funded by voters, with three projects currently active and four others completed
Identified the holder and helped develop the state grant application behind a farmland conservation easement in California
Marketed and closed the sale of 2,740 deeded acres of New Mexico ranch land under conservation easement, with its cattle operation and its protection both intact
Michael Scisco, principal of Terra Alta, brings more than twenty years of experience in conservation real estate, land-protection strategy, planning, and spatial analysis. In lead and supporting roles, he has helped protect more than 200,000 acres. Michael guides every Terra Alta engagement and remains directly involved throughout the work.
His background also includes founding BioGeoCreations in 2005. The firm’s geospatial analysis, mapping, and design capabilities became part of Terra Alta in 2026 and continue to support its conservation work today.
Credentials
Licensed New Mexico Qualifying Broker, License #19780
20+ years in land conservation, resource management, and real estate
GIS Graduate Certificate, Portland State University
B.S. in Environmental Science, Western Washington University
Service
Former board member, New Mexico Land Conservancy
Former board member, City of Albuquerque Open Space Advisory Board
Former board member and treasurer, Quivira Coalition
Start with the property and the question
You do not need to know which conservation option is right—or whether conservation makes sense at all. Tell us about the property and what you hope to accomplish. We will help identify what is realistically possible and which paths, if any, are worth pursuing.