Conserved land is essential to addressing climate change. The Land Trust Alliance works with land trusts to identify and implement climate-smart strategies and has helped fund the permanent protection of tens of thousands of acres of climate-critical lands.
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Land trusts are committed to helping tackle climate change. The Land Trust Alliance helps them identify, conserve and manage climate-resilient lands, which are most likely to persist and thrive in a changing climate. We enable land trusts to access funding to protect forests and grasslands that pull carbon from the air and to conserve lands that provide people with buffers from natural disasters. And we help land trusts to work with their communities to meet renewable energy development needs — without compromising critical open spaces.
Unleashing the power of land trusts
The Alliance provides financial and technical support to land trusts to identify, conserve and manage lands that are critical in our fight against climate change:
$5.5 million
More than $5.5 million in grants to land trusts for climate-related activities.
40,000 acres
Over 40,000 climate-resilient acres protected with funding from the Alliance’s Pacific Northwest Resilient Landscapes Initiative.
8,000 people
8,000 land trust professionals trained in climate-conscious conservation practices.
Featured project
Pacific Northwest Resilient Landscapes Initiative
The Pacific Northwest Resilient Landscapes Initiative provided grant funding and technical support to permanently conserve the most climate-resilient lands in the Pacific Northwest. The initiative supported projects that strengthen access to clean water, reduce the risks of flooding and bolster local economic opportunity.
Cascades Modoc Highlands is a 2,100-acre project at the center of 20,000 acres of protected land with diverse and connected habitats at risk from potential development
Columbia Land Trust
The Mt. Hood Oaks project permanently conserved nearly 2,000 acres of transition zone habitat with exceptional biodiversity and climate resiliency.
Deschutes Land Trust
Deschutes Land Trust protected Priday Ranch in Oregon, a 4,500 acre property that includes a wide variety of native species and is a stronghold for Deschutes River steelhead.
Great Peninsula Conservancy
Great Peninsula Conservancy’s Rocky Creek Estuary and Riparian Protection Project involved the acquisition and permanent protection of 197 acres in Pierce County, Washington.
McKenzie River Trust
The Finn Rock Reach Phase II project expanded protection to a key area of the McKenzie River, protecting the primary drinking water source for over 200,000 people. The Wren Marsh project expanded a 1,000-acre conservation area on the central Oregon coast, offering an incredible opportunity to protect, restore and steward the critical tidal estuary of the Siuslaw River.
North Coast Land Conservancy
The Rainforest Reserve project conserves 3,500 acres of coastal rainforest and rocky bald habitat, creating a resilient sea-to-summit conservation corridor stretching from the Pacific Ocean to the crests of the Coast Range.
North Olympic Land Trust
North Olympic Land Trust and the Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe partnered to purchase 104 acres of farmland and riverbank habitat in the Dungeness River Valley in Washington. North Olympic Land Trust and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe conserved a 33 riverside acres will conserve a buffer along the Elwha River floodplain and preclude future development.
Oregon Desert Land Trust
The Oregon Desert Land Trust conserved and restored two parcels along Jack Creek, totaling 483 acres, building on the protection of more than 1,000 acres in the area. Pronghorn antelope and other wildlife still thrive in the area. This area is one of the largest intact portions of shrub-steppe habitat left in Oregon and the United States.
Pacific Forest Trust
Pacific Forest Trust formed the multi-partner Mt. Ashland Forest Climate Resilience Project to protect a 1,675 acres forest property in the upper Rogue River basin on Oregon’s Siskiyou Crest, which restored resilient habitat conditions within the most biodiverse conifer forest type on earth.
PCC Farmland Trust
PCC Farmland Trust protected the 2600-acre Reiner Farm, which is five times the average farm size in Snohomish County and includes 2 miles of critical riparian habitat along a salmon-bearing stretch of the Skykomish.
The Vital Ground Foundation
Vital Ground protected 1,040 acres of critical wildlife linkage habitat in north Idaho’s Kootenai Valley to promote connectivity between the Selkirk and Cabinet-Yaak grizzly bear recovery areas.
Wood River Land Trust
Wood River Land Trust significantly expanded the Hailey Greenway by adding 118 acres in Croy Canyon, adjacent to the City of Hailey’s Lions Park, to protect emergent wetlands, riparian and sagebrush habitats.
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Nature needs your help.
The challenges facing our planet can seem too big for any one person: wildfires and extreme weather events, polluted air and water, rising seas, fractured communities and habitat loss for plants and animals. Supporting land trusts is one way you are making a difference for the land and people.
weathering a changing climate
Conserving natural strongholds
Our changing climate causes stress to plants and animals. Changes in temperature, moisture and the food chain can make an animal’s habitat inhospitable. Scientists have identified places whose location, elevation, soil and microhabitats make them naturally able to withstand these changes, to the benefit of plant and animal species. The Land Trust Alliance provides resources and training to help land trusts identify and conserve these resilient strongholds.
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DISASTER PREPAREDNESS AND RESPONSE
Shielding communities from disaster
Climate change is increasing the frequency and severity of natural disasters such as floods, droughts, wildfires and extreme heat. By protecting and managing land with climate impacts in mind, land trusts can help buffer communities from disasters. For example, healthy wetlands help reduce coastal flooding from storms and controlled burns can reduce a buildup of fuel for wildfires, lessening their intensity. Land trusts also have a unique role to play in helping their neighbors prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters by applying their expertise such as helping to clear downed trees following a storm or building water filtration systems in communities whose infrastructure has been damaged.
The Land Trust Alliance provides training and resources to help land trusts lessen the impacts of natural disasters in their communities.
REDUCING CARBON EMISSIONS
Protecting forests and grasslands
The Land Trust Alliance provides financial and technical assistance to help land trusts access carbon offset markets that provide funding for the conservation and management of forests and grasslands. These lands pull and store carbon from the atmosphere while also keeping our air and water clean and our soil healthy and productive: A win-win for nature and people.
RENEWABLE ENERGY
Siting renewable energy
The federal government and many state governments are taking immediate and decisive action to transition to a renewable energy system. Though a critical strategy for addressing climate change, renewable energy development will have a significant impact on the landscape. The Land Trust Alliance provides resources and training to help land trusts encourage renewable energy by working with authorities to site wind turbines and solar arrays away from sensitive natural lands.