What Is A Land Trust?

Land trusts are local, state, or regional nonprofit organizations directly
involved in protecting land for its natural, recreational, scenic,
historical, or productive value. Most land trusts are private, nonprofit
corporations. Land trusts are not "trusts" in the legal sense, and may also
be called "conservancies," "foundations," or any number of other names
descriptive of their purpose.

Land trusts are distinguished by their first-hand involvement in land
transactions or management. This involvement can take many forms. Some
land trusts purchase or accept donations of land or of conservation
easements (permanent, binding agreements that restrict the uses of a piece
of land to protect its conservation resources). Some manage land owned by
others or advise landowners on how to preserve their land. Some land trusts
help negotiate conservation transactions in which they play no other role.
Land trusts often work cooperatively with government agencies by acquiring
or managing land, researching open space needs and priorities, and assisting
in the development of open space plans. They also may work with other
nonprofit organizations and sometimes with developers. A land trust may do
one, several, or all of these things.

Some land trusts are organized to protect a single piece of property, but
the more active trusts have a larger land protection agenda. They may focus
their efforts in a community, in a region, on a particular type of resource,
or on a protection project. Some operate statewide and work cooperatively
with local land trusts in addition to conducting their own land conservation
projects. Resources protected by land trusts include forests, prairie
grasslands, islands, urban gardens, river corridors, farmland, watersheds,
parklands, marshes, ranchland, scenic vistas, cultural landscapes, Civil War
battlefields, and hiking trails.

Most land trusts depend on volunteer leadership and support even if they
also have a professional staff. They have the potential to bring together a
wide range of people in a community, such as naturalists, planners, farmers,
hunters, landowners, community leaders, sometimes developers, and others who
care about special lands in their communities.

(Source: The Land Trust Alliance. Starting a Land Trust: A Guide to
Forming a Land Conservation Organization. Virginia: The Land Trust
Alliance, 1990.)