Together, let’s keep Gaining Ground.

There’s an expression among conservation professionals that “asphalt is always the last crop.” Once an ecosystem gets plowed under and the very topsoil scraped off and trucked away, that’s true enough.

On Oct. 14, when the first autumn snow dusted the streets and mountains around Moscow, Idaho, Lovina Englund did more than enjoy the frosty ambience. After months of perilous heat, lingering smoke and anxious days when every kiln-dry tree felt prone to catastrophe, she breathed a deep sigh of relief. The fire season was finally over.

In the heart of the greater Yellowstone ecosystem, the Gallatin Valley Land Trust developed several layers of partnership to create several layers of conservation benefit in Highland Glenn near Bozeman, Montana.

The quaint New England town of Stonington, Connecticut, may not be the first setting that comes to mind when thinking about wildlife habitat for an imperiled species. But southeastern Connecticut has one of the few remaining populations of New England cottontail rabbit — a native species with trickier habitat needs than its non-native relative, the Eastern cottontail.

Dean Fedde and his brother Wayne are third-generation Nebraskan farmers who placed an easement on their property in 2010. This article was adapted from a letter Dean wrote in response to published attacks on private land conservation and the 30x30 goal.

When the accredited Solano Land Trust began work to increase accessibility on its properties, it knew the only way to successfully achieve this goal was to invite community members living with disability to join its “design table.”

The vast carbon storage potential of natural ecosystems worldwide is just now coming to light, but one local land trust has already spent a decade deliberately increasing the carbon held in its conserved grasslands.

Bats are invaluable to North American ecosystems for their role in eating insects and saving plants and trees from damage and disease. But white-nose syndrome, the fast-moving fungal disease, has decimated North American bats in recent years.

In July 2021, The Trust for Public Land and the Bureau of Land Management announced the expansion of the remote Sabinoso Wilderness Area in northeast New Mexico, which represents the largest land donation to a federal wilderness area in U.S. history.

In the fall of 2017, Hurricane Maria devastated Puerto Rico, claiming many lives and triggering an economic and humanitarian crisis for the island. When the skies cleared, staff from Para la Naturaleza, a unit of the accredited Conservation Trust of Puerto Rico, ventured out to survey the damage on its lands. They found widespread community devastation.

How often do you wake up on the wrong side of the bed, feeling anxious or cranky? For high school students in Montezuma Land Conservancy's summer Agriculture Immersion Program in Colorado, our daily morning "circle up" time provides a chance to voice those feelings in a safe, supportive environment.

For each American farmer younger than 25, five are older than 75. As farmers consider retirement, many find themselves forced to sell their land to development rather than to a future generation of farmers. This means more land removed from production agriculture.

The accredited North Florida Land Trust recently paid tribute to MaVynee Betsch, an environmental advocate known as “The Beach Lady” for her efforts to protect Amelia Island’s American Beach.

Terri Lane, executive director at the accredited Northwest Arkansas Land Trust, was aware of the important role land trusts can play in clean energy siting, but until recently this was not an immediate concern in her area.

If you’ve seen a grizzly bear in a movie like Legends of the Fall, chances are you’ve seen the work of Vital Ground Foundation, an organization that protects the very land that wild grizzly bears need to survive.

From the outset, the accredited Land Conservancy of West Michigan wanted to create a universal access trail on land — a much-needed solution to the community’s lack of recreational opportunities for people with disabilities.

BLISS Meadows is a 10-acre land reclamation project that brings educational farming and equitable access to green space in northeast Baltimore.

Long-time gardener Gerldine Wilson is passionate about the new initiatives of Grassroots Gardens WNY to provide accessibility and opportunities for healing through gardening. “I am personally invested in making sure we knock down as many barriers to gardening as we can. Therapeutic gardening is a ‘save your life skill,’ which has been very underestimated.”

Sometimes the benefits of land protection are less visible to the eye, like a microscopic improvement in stream quality or the invisible yet indispensable sequestration of green-houses gases.

Beginning in August 2017, three catastrophic hurricanes ripped through the Caribbean and struck various parts of the United States. The first of these was Hurricane Harvey, which hit Houston with intense winds and 51 inches of rain in less than a week. Throughout the city and surrounding areas, massive flooding ensued.

In Columbia County, New York, budding naturalists can check out Hudson Valley nature with only a library card — and a sense of adventure.

In many ways, the pandemic laid bare the critical connection between conservation and community access to local food. Americans around the country experienced a disruption in grocery and food supplies. Fortunately, The Land Conservancy of New Jersey was already ahead of the curve in making fresh food available to community members in need.