LAND TRUSTS –
A BRIEF OVERVIEW

The Problem
Expanding populations are encroaching on our wildlands

A Solution
Americans love their land, and are meeting the challenge—individually and collectively through land trusts—to preserve the best of the American landscape, rural livelihoods and natural areas across the country. A growing corps of willing and visionary landowners are entrusting their lands to the perpetual care of land trusts, making a commitment that will extend beyond their lifetimes. This growth in virtually every region and every aspect of private land conservation attests to the professionalism and public trust accorded to the 1,667-member land trust community—today and in the future. (2005 National Land Trust Census Report)

How It Works
Land trusts are non-profit charitable organizations whose mission is to conserve land through acquisition and stewardship in perpetuity. Land trusts work through outright purchases, conservation easements and bequests. Independent and entrepreneurial, land trusts are flexible and able to work across political boundaries to meet the needs of landowners, public land agencies and municipalities.

To achieve their goals land trusts need community input and support.

Benefits to the Land Owner
Under certain conditions the state and federal governments, acknowledging the public benefit, help by offering income, estate and property tax benefits to property owners who voluntarily relinquish certain uses of their land.

Land Trusts Today
In 1950 there were only 53 land trusts operating in 26 states. Today there are over
1,600 land trusts nationally. Most of them are community-based with half run only by volunteers.

Citizens are responding to the accelerating loss of wild land areas to subdivisions, often without the proper planning to protect essential community resources. Today, the nation’s land trusts have protected more than 10 million acres throughout the country.

Diminishing funding for government land acquisition programs has left private conservation as the primary method for achieving local conservation goals. The federally funded Land and Water Conservation Fund budget is a classic case in point: its’ budget has been cut by 65% from 2001 to 2006 from $999.7 million to just $346.8 million.

The 2005 National Land Trust Census Report finds that the pace of private land conservation by state and local land trusts has doubled their conservation acres from 6 million to 11.9 million acres in the past five years—an area twice the size of the state of New Hampshire.

The 2005 National Land Trust Census Report finds:

• The American West is the fastest-growing region in both the number of acres conserved and the number of land trusts, followed by the Southeast.
  
• The land type reported as being the primary focus of land trust efforts is protecting natural areas and wildlife habitat (39%), followed by open space (38%) and water resources (26%), especially wetlands.
  
• The states with the highest total acres conserved are California, Maine, Colorado, Montana, Virginia, New York, Vermont, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Massachusetts.

About the Land Trust Alliance: The Land Trust Alliance was formed in 1982 to advance the mission of land trusts. Since its inception, the Land Trust Alliance has trained thousands of conservation leaders, won new federal tax incentives for conservation on private lands, and developed standards and practices to professionalize and safeguard land trust work. The Land Trust Alliance connects land trusts, so that every land trust can benefit from the collective wisdom and innovations of the entire community. It is based in Washington, DC with field offices in most regions of the country.

More Information
The Land Trust Alliance - http://www.lta.org
The California Council of Land Trusts - http://www.calandtrusts.org