The accredited North Florida Land Trust recently paid tribute to MaVynee Betsch, an environmental advocate known as “The Beach Lady” for her efforts to protect Amelia Island’s American Beach.

Across the West, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Conservation Service works with Native Americans to restore sagebrush range through the Sage Grouse Initiative, part of the Working Lands for Wildlife program.

People love gnomes. Or so Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy discovered last summer when the accredited New York land trust hosted a Summer Hike-a-thon Scavenger Hunt.

The closure of farmers markets around Madison, Wisconsin, last spring left some Hmong growers at a disadvantage. As markets moved online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, growers were left behind if they weren’t proficient in technology or didn’t speak English as a primary language.

Sometimes the benefits of land protection are less visible to the eye, like a microscopic improvement in stream quality or the invisible yet indispensable sequestration of green-houses gases. Other times, the signs of nature’s resilience are right out in the open.

In central Idaho, the Pioneer Mountain Region straddles sagebrush grasslands and high mountains. This wild and beautiful landscape hosts abundant wildlife, including sage grouse, pronghorn and antelope.

At the heart of one of California’s most scenic stretches of coastline in Big Sur, the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County has regained its first ancestral homelands since it was displaced by the Spanish four centuries ago.

The pandemic dramatically changed how we interact with the world. When many arts organizations cancelled their 2020 seasons, Philadelphia contemporary ballet company BalletX found a creative way to make the world its stage.

When a massive derecho storm hit central Iowa without warning last August, the destruction was widespread. The intense windstorm brought up to 130-mile-per-hour gusts, equivalent to a Category 3 hurricane or 40-mile-wide tornado.

Historically, accounts of the Chesapeake Bay watershed have too regularly excluded Black voices and narratives. This 400-year omission affects how and where conservation takes place.

In many ways, the pandemic laid bare the critical connection between conservation and community access to local food.

Land access and food security have always been important issues for Kingston Land Trust, but they have emerged as even greater priorities during the pandemic.

The accredited Land Trust of North Alabama partnered with Downtown Huntsville, Inc. and Downtown Charitable Fund to provide temporary employment to service industry workers from downtown Huntsville businesses who had been displaced due to the economic fallout of COVID-19.

As various iconic public lands all over the country closed due to COVID-19, many land trusts experienced increased traffic at their properties — as well as a renewed appreciation for conservation.

In rapidly developing Eagle County, Colorado, the Land & Rivers Fund helps to protect rivers and open spaces. In partnership with Eagle River Watershed Council, the accredited Eagle Valley Land Trust launched the program, which is supported by local businesses and their customers, who make voluntary donations with purchases.

A first-of-its-kind study has found that land conservation modestly boosts employment, a leading indicator of economic growth.

Why did the salamander cross the road?

Land trusts around the country have joined the fight to protect native pollinators, which are essential to the planet and to human life, allowing for the reproduction of over 85% of the world's flowering plants and two-thirds of the world's crop species.

Over 80 percent of the U.S. population lives under skies so polluted by man-made lights that celestial objects like the Milky Way are almost invisible.

You're never too old to learn new things, a spirit that Virginia's accredited New River Land Trust takes to heart by leading field trips for people ages 50 and over.

High school students in Trees Atlanta's summer job program learned landscaping and leadership skills while beautifying Atlanta by watering trees and pulling invasive weeds.

In Colorado's high-altitude San Luis Valley, which contains the headwaters of the Rio Grande, communities and conservationists have always needed to work together to solve water challenges while balancing the needs of people, agriculture and wildlife.

In 1978, during low tide in the Columbia River Estuary, amateur paleontologists exploring the tidal flats in Pacific County, Washington, found the skull and teeth of a primitive whale dating back 25 million years to the Oligocene, a geological epoch.

Habitat restoration is a goal of many land trusts, including Three Valley Conservation Trust in Oxford, Ohio.

"People take pride in participating in the work of a land trust that has high standards. It adds to morale."

To better connect people in the community with nature, this conservancy is putting landscapes to work.

The Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust finds that accreditation makes their organization — and the land trust movement — stronger.

Accreditation helped Tall Timbers Land Conservancy when it mattered most.

Open Space Institute saw the value in a national standard that helps land trusts of all sizes uphold the highest standards and practices.

Public-private partnerships are critical to the work of Northern Virginia Conservation Trust. The organization preserves Northern Virginia’s natural areas in part by helping Arlington County, Fairfax County and the city of Alexandria carry out the commitments to open space protection outlined in their comprehensive plans.

Accreditation helped Greenbelt Land Trust in a time of rapid organizational change.

In her work at Upstate Forever to protect special places in the Upstate region of South Carolina, Erin Jordan Knight has encountered landowners who understandably question how they can be sure that future enforcers of their easements will be fair.

On a business trip to Los Angeles in 1972, Tommy Wyche was shocked to see development covering the mountains surrounding the city. He returned from the trip and told his son, Brad, “We’ve got to make sure that doesn’t happen to the South Carolina mountains.”