Land trusts bring voters together

At a time of political change, one thing is clear and consistent: Americans strongly support saving the open spaces they love and are even willing to tax themselves to protect those places.

This week, America’s land trusts led and contributed to campaigns that succeeded in passing 12 state and local land conservation ballot measures, creating nearly $1.5 billion in new land protection funding across the nation.

The largest measure occurred in California's Los Angeles County, where citizens voted to create such funds for most of the county’s 88 cities. Other measures succeeded in Colorado's Grand County; the counties of Alachua, Brevard and Lee in Florida; the towns of John's Creek and Milton in Georgia; Iowa's Linn County; Ohio's Clermont County; Smithfield in Pennsylvania; and South Carolina's Charleston County.

These popular, bipartisan measures saw excellent approval rates regardless of the candidate that local voters supported for president. As evidence:

• Brevard County was carried by Donald Trump on the same ballot that 62 percent of voters approved their conservation measure
• Hillary Clinton won Alachua County, where 60 percent of voters also approved a sales tax increase for parks and environmentally sensitive land
• Trump won metropolitan Cincinnati’s Clermont County, where 63 percent of voters approved new funding for parks

Land trusts are very close to their communities, and the work our member organizations accomplish is deeply valued. Once again, we have strong proof that voters truly value the places they need and love!

Andy McLeod is advocacy director for the Land Trust Alliance.