Conservation Defense

Highlights

• Terrafirma Takes Flight
• 2013 State Legislative Considerations on the Charitable Assets Act
• What you Need to Know from Tax Cases

The Conservation Defense Initiative has three components:

1. Conservation Defense Center
Provides networking, education and legal information to attorneys and land trusts on conservation defense.

• Clearinghouse*
• Attorney Locator*
• Attorney Network
• Special Training Opportunities

2. Conservation Defense Fund
Used by the Alliance to assist land trusts facing precedent-setting legal challenges to their conservation easements and land holdings.  The Fund is not a replacement for land trust legal defense funds and stewardship endowments.

3. Conservation Defense Insurance

We have made extraordinary progress on advancing Terrafirma. This is the first time in history that an environmental organization has created its own insurance company. Terrafirma RRG LLC is a new charitable risk pool insurance service organized by the Land Trust Alliance, and owned by land trusts to protect against costly legal battles.

The response from land trusts has been positive. Nearly 500 land trusts have sign up 18,500 properties for Terrafirma coverage already.

For information on any of these programs, please contact Leslie Ratley-Beach, Alliance Conservation Defense Director, at lrbeach@lta.org.

*Access is offered to board, staff and volunteers of Alliance member land trusts and organizational partners, and to individual members at the $250 level and above.