Land Trust Alliance and Open Space Institute Award $243,000 to accelerate local climate planning

Washington, D.C. — The Land Trust Alliance and the Open Space Institute have announced the awarding of $243,000 in grants aimed at helping communities better plan for and mitigate the impacts of climate change and extreme weather events. The grants are awarded to local land trusts and administered jointly by the Alliance and OSI through their Land and Climate Grant Program, generously funded by the Doris Duke Foundation, Jane’s Trust Foundation, the J.M. Kaplan Fund and the Volgenau Foundation. This year’s recipients are located across the country, including in: Alaska, California, Colorado, Georgia, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Through the Land and Climate Grant Program, land trusts receive funding and technical assistance to implement strategic land protection and stewardship initiatives. These efforts help maintain and enhance the capacity of forests and other landscapes to capture and sequester carbon, provide land-based buffers against the impacts of climate change and severe weather, and help wildlife adapt to a changing climate.

In the five years since the Land and Climate Grant Program’s launch, the Alliance and OSI have awarded more than $1.6 million in grants and technical assistance to address the climate crisis. In total, the Land and Climate Grant Program has supported 133 projects led by 116 different organizations located in 35 states and Puerto Rico.

“Land conservation has a key role to play in tackling climate change,” said Kelly Watkinson, the land and climate program director at the Land Trust Alliance. “Land trust actions at the local level can have a global impact on our climate. Every acre protected and well-managed can be part of the solution. The Land and Climate Grant Program, operated in tandem with the Open Space Institute, supports land trusts that are developing and implementing climate-informed land conservation and stewardship strategies into their everyday work.”

“Land trusts are on the front lines of environmental protection. Through the Land and Climate Grant Program, we are empowering local organizations to harness the power of science and strategic land protection to combat the impacts of extreme weather and climate change, protect biodiversity and strengthen communities,” said Erik Kulleseid, OSI’s president and CEO. “We are proud to support this vital work that helps protect communities and natural landscapes today and for generations to come.”

In the 2025 grant cycle, OSI and the Alliance worked to align the Land and Climate Grant Program with the Network for Landscape Conservation’s Catalyst Fund, which supports strategic investments in collaborative capacity for partnerships working at a landscape scale. Partners are then well-positioned to implement effective climate solutions such as protecting forested corridors to facilitate species migration, or enacting watershed-scale strategies to address flooding issues and threats to water quality. Three collaboratives — the Alaska South Coast Partnership (working with the Kachemak Heritage Land Trust), the Downeast Conservation Network (working with Frenchman Bay Conservancy), and the Western New York Wildway Partner Network (working with Western New York Land Conservancy) — received support from both funding programs to advance climate-informed planning efforts within their landscapes.

“In an era of intensifying systems-level challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, and environmental injustice, it is imperative we find ways to advance locally driven efforts that transcend geographic and institutional boundaries,” said Jonathan Peterson, Director of the Network for Landscape Conservation. “With the Catalyst Fund, we've pointed to Landscape Partnerships as a powerful pathway for doing so. The complex work of bringing partners together to find shared purpose and long-term action requires a significant investment of time, energy, and effort, and the Catalyst Fund is intended to provide the resources to allow Partnerships to invest in their collaborative process. What is so exciting this year is the chance to work alongside the Alliance and OSI to pair those collaborative capacity investments with targeted climate planning investments that allow Partnerships to accelerate efforts to realize sustainable, resilient, and more just futures for our landscapes and communities.”

Land trusts and conservation organizations are at the forefront of helping communities adapt to and mitigate the effects of climate change and severe weather. Land protection not only preserves the ability of forests and other natural features to absorb and store atmospheric carbon; it also prevents significant greenhouse gas emissions from deforestation, secures habitat connectivity for wildlife, and helps to safeguard communities from the effects of extreme weather. Since 2015, the Alliance and OSI have partnered to fund, provide technical assistance, and train land trusts and other conservation nonprofits on incorporating climate science into their acquisition and stewardship planning.

2025 Land and Climate Grant Program grantees:

• Alaska’s Kachemak Heritage Land Trust ($20,000, plus technical assistance) – Alaska South Coast Partnership Continuation

• California’s Eastern Sierra Land Trust ($14,000) – Resilient Lands, Connected Communities: A Conservation Vision for the Eastern Sierra

• California’s Ojai Valley Land Conservancy ($14,000) – Prescribed Burning for Climate Resilience in the Ventura River Watershed

• Colorado’s Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust ($14,000) – Private Lands Partnership for Wildfire Resilience and Watershed Protection

• Georgia’s Lula Lake Land Trust ($8,000) – LLLT Strategic Conservation Plan

• Massachusetts’ Mass Audubon ($14,000) – Mapping Collaborative for Responsible Clean Energy and Nature Protection in Massachusetts

• Massachusetts’ New England Forestry Foundation ($15,000) – Developing an Exotic Pest and Pathogen Mitigation Strategy for NEFF Fee Lands

• Maine’s Frenchman Bay Conservancy ($20,000 plus technical assistance) – Transforming and Strengthening the Downeast Conservation Network

• Maine’s Maine Farmland Trust ($14,000) – Development of Climate Informed Easement Evaluations for Improved Conservation Outcomes

• New Jersey’s The Land Conservancy of New Jersey ($15,000) – Identifying and Prioritizing Intact Forests in the New Jersey Highlands

• New York’s Dutchess Land Conservancy ($12,000) – Climate-Informed Management Plan for Bontecou Preserve in New York’s Hudson Valley

• New York’s Western New York Land Conservancy ($20,000, plus technical assistance) – Western New York Wildway Strategic Action Plan

• Oregon’s Oregon Desert Land Trust ($11,000) – Planning for Climate Resilience in Oregon’s High Desert

• South Carolina’s Nation Ford Land Trust ($12,000) – Resilient by Nature: Protecting York County's Lands

• Vermont’s Vermont River Conservancy ($15,000) – Watershed-scale Plans for Three Vermont Watersheds Most Vulnerable to Flood Impacts

• Virginia’s The Piedmont Environmental Council ($11,000) – Developing Easily Replicable Agrivoltaics Projects for Low-Income Communities

• Wisconsin’s Restoring Lands ($14,000) – Creating a Comprehensive Communications Plan to Advance Climate Resiliency

About the Land Trust Alliance

Founded in 1982, the Land Trust Alliance is a national land conservation organization working to save the places people need and love by empowering and mobilizing land trusts in communities across America to conserve land for the benefit of all. The Alliance represents approximately 1,000 member land trusts and affiliates supported by more than 250,000 volunteers and 6.3 million members nationwide. The Alliance is based in Washington, D.C., with staff working in communities across the U.S. More information about the Alliance is available at www.landtrustalliance.org.

About the Open Space Institute

The Open Space Institute is a national leader in land conservation and efforts to make parks and other protected land more welcoming for all. Since 1974, OSI has partnered in the protection of more than 2.5 million at-risk and environmentally sensitive acres in the eastern U.S. OSI’s land protection promotes clean air and water, improves access to recreation, provides wildlife habitat, strengthens communities, and combats the devastating impacts of extreme weather. Visit OSI online at www.openspaceinstitute.org.

About the Network for Landscape Conservation

The Network for Landscape Conservation is a national umbrella group and leading voice for advancing collaborative conservation and stewardship at the landscape scale. As a practitioners’ network, NLC works to connect practitioners to ideas and innovation — and to each other — in order to accelerate the pace and practice of landscape conservation and stewardship. Learn more about NLC online at www.landscapeconservation.org.

About the Doris Duke Foundation

The mission of the Doris Duke Foundation is to build a more creative, equitable and sustainable future. We work across three areas: arts and culture; nature; and health and well-being. Visit www.dorisduke.org to learn more.