By Debra E. Blum
Each year, two million acres of forests, farms, wetlands, and other of America's open spaces are taken over by new homes, shopping malls, highways, and other development. But, according to a new report, hundreds of local charities dedicated to preserving land are leading a fast-growing conservation movement that may help stem that tide.
In just five years, from 2000 to 2005, local and state land-preservation groups, known as land trusts, doubled the total number of acres they protect from development, to nearly 12 million, the report says.
And the land trusts, which acquire land from private owners or secure legal restrictions on how it may be used, tripled the pace at which they protect land. From 1995 to 2000, the trusts managed to protect, on average, an additional 340,000 acres each year; from 2000 to 2005, they were able to protect an annual average of an additional 1.2 million acres.
The report was produced by the Land Trust Alliance, in Washington, a national association of 1,100 land trusts. The report is based on data from 940 land trusts, not including national land-preservation organizations, such as Ducks Unlimited and the Nature Conservancy.
When land protected by those groups is counted, the total acres of protected land in America rises to 37 million, according to the report, up 13 million acres from 2000.
1,700 Groups
The new report focuses mainly on the small organizations spread throughout the country, groups that are considered key drivers in many communities' battles to preserve open space from development.
The Land Trust Alliance's survey counted nearly 1,700 of those local, state, and regional groups last year, nearly one third more than in 2000.
During the same time period, the land trusts' average annual budgets rose by 63 percent, while the number of paid staff members, donors, and volunteers all jumped, too.
Of the total 12 million acres the land trusts had under conservation last year, the biggest chunk — more than 6.2 million acres — was being protected by conservation easements, legal tools that limit development. Easements were also the fastest-growing part of conservation efforts from 2000 to 2005, with the number of acres under easement growing by 148 percent, from just over 2.5 million in 2000. The number of acres owned outright by land trusts, by comparison, grew by 40 percent during the same five years' time.
That growth is likely to continue, especially because a federal law passed this summer boosts the write-offs donors can take for placing easements on their properties.
The land-conservation movement started more than 100 years ago in Massachusetts, and the seven states in the Northeast continue to lead the way in the total number of acres conserved — nearly 3.6 million last year, according to the report.
Six states in the Southwest achieved the greatest increase in the total acres conserved from 2000 to 2005, from fewer than 800,000 to nearly two million.
The Northwest's six states saw the largest increase in acres owned by land trusts — an 89-percent jump to roughly 45,000 acres.
And the Pacific region — California, Hawaii, and Nevada — experienced the biggest percentage increase in the number of local land trusts. The three states had 217 land trusts last year, up from 139 in 2000.
The report says that the availability of state and federal tax incentives is a key impetus for land conservation, and that the expansion and enhanced sophistication of land trusts around the country has also yielded more interest in land protection.
In the West, the report says, huge swaths of unprotected open spaces, forests, and grazing lands are garnering more and more attention as farmers and ranchers seek to protect their way of life.
And cities and towns nationwide, the report says, want to take charge of their growth and respect the rights of landowners, while at the same time protecting parks, urban gardens, woods, and rivers.
"The big story is land trusts have achieved traction," says Rand Wentworth, president of the Land Trust Alliance. "Twenty years ago, land trusts were a boutique industry. It is still local and many organizations are still small, but the cumulative effect of 1,667 of these groups is huge."
Mr. Wentworth cautions, however, that land-trust groups of all sizes must ensure that they have the capacity both to properly handle a growing number of real-estate transactions and to provide adequate oversight of the land they promise to protect.
"We need strong, sustainable groups to answer the hunger in this country for conservation," he says.
Free copies of the Land Trust Alliance's report, "2005 National Land Trust Census Report," are available on the organization's Web site at http://www.lta.org.