A new United Nations’ report demonstrates how critical land conservation and sustainable land management is to protecting the world’s food supply from the ravages of climate change. Land trusts and the Land Trust Alliance are ready to meet this challenge.
We are excited to share the launch of a new program between the Land Trust Alliance and the USDA Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
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The Scholars for Conservation Leadership Program is a career and leadership development program that aims to expand opportunities for students from underrepresented minority groups in the land conservation field. / Photos courtesy of North Carolina State University
Earlier this month, I spoke at a ceremony attended by hundreds of people at Niagara Falls. We celebrated together as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated the U.S. side of the Niagara River a Ramsar site: a Wetland of International Importance.
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The United States side of the Niagara River is now a Ramsar site: a Wetland of International Importance. / Photo by Ana Hernandez Balzac
During the summer, staff of the accredited Conservation Trust for North Carolina visited the small town of Princeville that has been repeatedly devastated by floodwaters. In 1999, Hurricane Floyd caused the Tar River to rise and the town was submerged.
Standing atop Burnt Mountain, a great arc of the northern Green Mountains embraces you in soft-shouldered beauty stretching from horizon to horizon. Up close, the vivid colors of the fall foliage surround you.
Tucked away in the Winter 1989 issue of Exchange, the original quarterly journal of the Land Trust Alliance, is an announcement highlighting the launch of a groundbreaking new project: Land Trust Standards and Practices.
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Rand Wentworth, a former Land Trust Alliance president, dressed for Halloween one year as Land Trust Standards and Practices. / Photo from archives
Each year, the Maryland Environmental Trust and its state partners award more than $200,000 in grants to other land trusts and community organizations in the state through its Keep Maryland Beautiful program. It’s a meaningful program with many success stories.
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Ryan Dickson-Burke works in the Project Spudnik garden that Maryland Environmental Trust supports. / Photo by Mary Burke
Land trusts around the country continue to explore the use of renewable energy, including solar. At the accredited Land Trust of Napa County in California, solar panel installations equal big cost savings.
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A pre-fire photo taken in the Archer Taylor Preserve shows the beauty of the area, which is slowly recovering. Solar panels added to a caretaker house on the preserve were a welcome addition as the isolated house suffered frequent power outages from trees or branches falling on the wires. Photo by A. Kubler
In New Mexico, the accredited Taos Land Trust is flipping the switch on the energy debate and building community energy resiliency. Solar panels generate 50% of the energy used to run the land trust.
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Photo by Jim O'Donnell / Courtesy of Taos Land Trust
I was fortunate to join the staff of the Land Trust Alliance (then the Land Trust Exchange) for the first time in the summer of 1987. I was 27 — a millennial, in today's terms — young and eager to make my mark.
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At Rally 2017 in Denver, Colorado, Jean Hocker speaks with Land Trust Alliance Director of Standards & Educational Services Sylvia Bates and President’s Circle Member Bob Ayres, a former Alliance board member. / Photo by DJ Glisson, II
