Like many people in the land trust community, I have had a lifelong fascination with the world’s biodiversity. The abundance and variety of lifeforms is both mind-boggling and inspiring.

I spent my Labor Day weekend enjoying a riverside campsite on Mount Hood National Forest in Oregon. It was a perfect late-summer weekend with blue skies and just a touch of autumn in the air. But on our final morning, the blue skies disappeared in the unmistakable haze of wildfire smoke.

“Rally is an enormous gift in these dire times,” said Carolyn Edelmann, community relations associate of the accredited D&R Greenway Land Trust in New Jersey. “Rally gives us hours, even days, of cooperation with courageous, devoted, original people who care about the health of our planet and devote their lives to its well-being. In other words, Rally delivers hope, as well as practical steps to realize our personal and professional missions!"

This fall, the Land Trust Alliance's Land and Climate Program is providing new trainings for land trusts to learn to adapt to and mitigate climate change.

Abuse of the conservation easement tax incentive has ballooned in recent years from $6 billion in illicit claimed deductions in 2016, to $6.8 billion in 2017 to $9.2 billion in 2018 — for a total of $36 billion since 2010.

The Partnership for Gulf Coast Land Conservation (the Gulf Partnership) is a collaboration of 26 local, regional and national land trusts across the Gulf Coast region.

Every year, Rally gives us the chance to come together and connect with and learn from our colleagues across the country.

As we draw ever closer to Rally 2020: The National Land Conservation Conference, excitement is growing. We just announced two great speakers! And registrations continue to pour in!

"I bet that you can think of something that matters to you that you wish mattered to more people," says Nina Simon in her Tedx Talk, "The Art of Relevance."

No matter where you're working from right now, the discussion forums on the Land Trust Alliance Learning Center can help your land trust explore some of today’s most pressing issues, from the philosophical to the practical.