About Land Trusts

What is a Land Trust?

• A land trust is a nonprofit organization that, as all or part of its mission, actively works to conserve land by undertaking or assisting in land or conservation easement acquisition, or by its stewardship of such land or easements.
• Land trusts work with landowners and the community to conserve land by accepting donations of land, purchasing land, negotiating conservation agreements on land (called conservation easements), and stewarding conserved land through the generations to come.
• A land trust works for conservation instead of the generation of profits through land sales.
• Most land trusts are community-based and deeply connected to local needs, so they're well-equipped to identify land that offers critical natural habitat as well as land offering recreational, agricultural and other conservation value.

How does a Land Trust Work?

• By holding land or conservation easements on land with high conservation value, land trusts counter the economic model of poorly planned development and sprawl.

• Land trusts communicate and demonstrate the powerful benefits of land on our lives and on the human spirit.

Frequently asked questions about land trusts

• What is a land trust and what does it do?

• Are land trusts government agencies?
• What are the advantages of working with a land trust?
• I first heard about land trusts just a few years ago. Are they new?
• What has contributed to the huge growth in the number of land trusts?
• How do I start a land trust in my community?

Making an Impact

The idea to work to maximize resources has spread rapidly.  Today there are 1,700 land trusts that have more than 100,000 volunteers and 2 million members.

So far, land trusts have conserved 37 million acres of land in America – an area roughly the size of all the New England states combined.