Increasingly, land trusts are discovering the power of bolstering their stewardship toolkits with new technologies and perspectives. Remote monitoring has helped stewardship teams and landowners gain new perspectives on their work, respond quickly to threats to conserved land and work more efficiently to uphold the promise of protecting land in perpetuity. The Land Trust Alliance, in partnership with the California chapter of The Nature Conservancy, is excited to support land trusts in exploring how remote monitoring technologies can help to enhance their stewardship work. The program:
Check back soon for new grant award opportunities.
2022 Grant Awardees
For the second round of Remote Monitoring grants, the Land Trust Alliance is thrilled to announce that the following projects received a total of $146,000 in funding. Below are just some of the awardees.
Jackson Hole Land Trust in Wyoming will be using remote monitoring to address unique challenges faced by their stewardship staff across 21,000 acres including assisting landowners with land management, strengthening landowner relationships and tracking ownership changes.
North Central Conservancy Trust, Inc. in Wisconsin will be using an unmanned aerial vehicle to monitor over 700 acres of their nearly 5,000 acres to improve their methods for baseline documentation, creating orthomosaics, for future comparison and identifying threats to conservation.
Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust in Massachusetts is looking to track and report carbon footprint reductions and identify points to mitigate and adapt their 12,000 acres in the region of northcentral Massachusetts to address climate change.
Lancaster Farmland Trust in Pennsylvania will be focusing on their farmland easements, making up 21,000 acres of their 33,500 acres, and addressing increased internal requirements for monitoring, identifying conservation concerns and environmental improvements.
New Mexico Land Conservancy will use remote monitoring to identify the most complex and at-risk easements due to development or climate change impacts and establish specific objectives to measure risks to easements on 98,000 acres in partnership with state and federal partners.
Northern California Regional Land Trust will address the rapidly changing landscape due to drought, forest fires, climate change and increased portfolio acquisitions with remote monitoring 28,000 acres of their 35,000 acres to maintain landowner relations and staff safety.
Northwoods Land Trust, Inc. in Wisconsin is looking to diversify its monitoring procedures by incorporating remote monitoring to improve efficiency and coverage while being able to identify threats to conservation across their 14,000+ acres of protected land.
Placer Land Trust in California is exploring unmanned aerial vehicle use and satellite imagery to monitor 11,000 acres to reduce time spent on travel, improve identification of third party encroachment, plan future management, tract restoration projects and will create orthomosaics for 10 preserves.
Tenngreen Land Conservancy in Tennessee will address the critical conservation issue in Tennessee of threats to timberland on almost 16,000 acres with seasonal change detection to identify timber encroachment, natural disturbance, resource extraction and impacts of invasive species.
Prickly Pear Land Trust in Montana will use remote monitoring on their 12,000 acres to improve detections of potential violations, streamline their reporting process and use the time to strengthen relationships with landowners.
Dutchess Land Conservancy in New York is transitioning from aircraft-based monitoring to remote monitoring and will be documenting the changes they will make to their monitoring procedures across their 44,000 acres.
Transition Habitat Conservancy in California is testing the ease of using remote monitoring to increase volunteers to conduct monitoring on 8,000 acres which will supplement the drone imaging program currently used.
Teton Regional Land Trust in Idaho partnering with Sagebrush Steppe Land Trust to conduct aerial monitoring of almost 43,000 acres to identify shared threats to conservation in their service areas such as, development pressures due to population growth, changing land uses and climate change.
The Upper Valley Land Trust in New Hampshire is expanding upon their remote monitoring program implemented in 2018 by using privately piloted drones and plane flown imagery to include satellite imagery and determine the savings to time and cost for their portfolio including 546 properties across 56,000 acres in New Hampshire and Vermont.
Upper Peninsula Land Conservancy in Michigan is a second-year funded recipient and will continue development of policies and procedures for remote monitoring across their 10,000 acres in addition to providing peer support to new grantees.
Valley Conservation Council in Virginia is looking to address the greatest conservation threats in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, such as, land conversion, timber encroachment on riparian zone, boundary encroachment and trail creation, with remote monitoring on their 7,500 acres.
Willistown Conservation Trust in Pennsyvlania is exploring remote monitoring use to address issues of a small staff with limited time to ground monitor 124 easement properties covering 2,800 acres annually.
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