For Land TrustsFor Land Trusts

Economic Benefits

The Economic Value of Protecting Our Lands and Waters

We all benefit from nature.

From the pure pleasure of experiencing it, to the food and water it provides us, the value of nature is in one sense priceless.

But nature’s economic worth can also be quantified. Research shows that land conservation adds an impressive economic value by boosting local economies through tourism and jobs, saving money on health care, filtering drinking water, providing natural disaster mitigation, and more.

The Land Trust Alliance and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service – Coastal Program have created a brochure that offers a snapshot of nature’s many economic benefits.

You can download it here to learn more about the financial value of land conservation.

Did You Know?

Having a good estimate of nature’s value allows communities to make informed land management decisions and effectively advocate for land protection. You can learn more here.

See the source data for the brochure: “Investing In Nature: The Economic Benefits of Protecting Our Lands and Waters.”

Resources and Tools

Articles

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The view of Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains from The Piedmont Environmental Council’s Piedmont Memorial Overlook. / Photo credit: Hugh Kenny

The fight against conservation challenges

Source: 
Saving Land magazine, Summer 2021
Author: 
Madeline Bodin

  Across the country, land trusts are banding together to stop state legislation that would limit private land conservation.  

Articles

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Author Dean Fedde (right) and his brother Wayne on the farm they protected with a conservation easement. The Nebraska farmers vowed to save their family farmland and worked with Nebraska Land Trust to permanently protect it in 2010.

A tale of two farms: The power of conservation easements

Source: 
Saving Land magazine, Summer 2021
Author: 
Dean Fedde

I am a lifelong Nebraskan with deeply planted roots in southwest Sarpy County. For nearly a century, my family has farmed in the Lower Platte Valley, an area rich with some of our state’s most fertile soils. In Nebraska’s fastest growing county, there is now an urgency to protect the historic farmsteads, rolling fields of grain and the diverse habitat needed to sustain the abundant wildlife of the region. In these rapidly changing times, agriculture is being squeezed out and farms are vanishing at an alarming rate. Unfortunately, my family has suffered that reality.

Articles

Ranching into the Future

Source: 
Saving Land magazine, Spring 2010
Author: 
June Hussey

Ranching and farming throughout the country are essential to maintaining local and regional agricultural economies and preserving rural heritage and culture. For generations, ranchers and farmers have been some of the best land stewards around, and their working landscapes can help sustain plant and wildlife habitat.