The Land Trust Movement in the United States of America

	The Land Trust Alliance
	National Land Trust Census
	Specific Findings
	Summary of Census Main Data
	Survey Method
	Further Information

 

	promotes voluntary land conservation across the country;
	assists with resources;
	provides leadership; and
	offers training to the nation's 1,200 plus nonprofit local and regional land trusts.

When the Land Trust Alliance was created, there were fewer than 450 local and regional land trusts in the United States. Many of them were operating in isolation and seeking to learn how others were effectively protecting open spaces. Today, there are more than 1,200 local and regional land trusts, and the Land Trust Alliance has grown to lead a vast movement that is touching the very heart of America's concerns:

the protection of open space.

Currently more than 900 land trusts are the formal sponsoring members of the Land Trust Alliance, and nearly 1 million people are supporters and members of land trusts in the United States. Land trusts protect land in a variety of ways:

 

	through donation and purchase;
	by working with landowners who wish to donate or sell conservation easements (permanent deed restrictions that prevent harmful land uses); or
	by acquiring land outright to maintain as open spaces.

The birthplace of the US land trust movement was the State of Massachusetts in the northeast of the country where in the 1891 the first land trusts were established. Some 110 years later Massachusetts with 143 land trusts is still the country's leading State with the largest number of land trust. However, since the first land trusts were established the movement has grown to become extraordinarily successful, having protected more than 6.2 million acres of open space according to a recent countrywide Census carried out during 2000.

 

	For the first time since 1891, when the first nonprofit land trust was founded in the United States, land has been permanently protected in all of the 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico by nonprofit, grassroots land trusts.
	More importantly, the National Land Trust Census found that local and regional land trusts had protected more than 6.2 million acres of open space, an area twice the size of the State of Connecticut. Although the Census tallies data only from local and regional land trusts, national land trusts have protected millions of acres as well.

The Census portrays a growing movement that is fuelled by people's desire to save the green spaces and open lands that make each community unique. The private conservation movement may well be the fastest growing segment of the conservation community.

 

	As of 31 December 2000, a total of 6,225,225 acres of land had been protected by local and regional land trusts, a 226 percent increase over the 1.9 million acres protected as of 1990.
	California, New York and Montana led the nation in the amount of acreage protected by local and regional land trusts.
	1,263 local and regional land trusts were in operation in 2000, a 42 percent increase over the number (887) that existed in 1990.
	Local and regional land trusts in some regions increased protected acres by vast percentages. In the Southwest (Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico, Utah), land trusts increased protected land by 1,646 percent to 705,403 acres, up from 40,403 acres protected as of 1990. In second place, the South Central (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas), land trusts protected - 105,967 acres as of 2000 compared to 7,341 acres a decade earlier.
	The South Central portion of the country (Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and Texas) saw the most rapid growth in the number of land trusts. In that region, Texas saw the greatest growth, with 22 land trusts conserving land in 2000 as compared to just nine in 1990. The Southwest and Southeast followed in the second and third spots.
	Of the more than 6.2 million acres permanently protected, nearly 2.6 million acres have been protected by conservation easements, almost a fivefold (475 percent) increase over the 450,000 acres protected by conservation easements as of 1990. As of 31st December 2000, grassroots land trusts had secured more than 11,600 easement agreements with landowners who voluntarily chose to protect their land.

For purposes of the National Land Trust Census, a land trust has been defined as:

"a nonprofit organisation that, as all or part of its mission, actively works to conserve land by undertaking or assisting direct land transactions - primarily the purchase or acceptance of donations of land or conservation easements."

 

	providing funding to other groups for land acquisition;
	negotiating with conservation buyers - conservation-minded individuals who are willing to invest in property in anticipation of its ultimate and permanent protection as open space; and
	facilitating negotiations for land to be acquired by another nonprofit organisation or a public agency.