A new report released today by the Land Trust Alliance finds that state and local land trusts have almost doubled their conservation acres from 6 million to 11.9 million acres in the past five years – an area twice the size of the state of New Hampshire.
Including the work of national conservation groups, a total of 37 million acres have been conserved by private means – an area 16 1/2 times the size of Yellowstone National Park.
“The success of private land conservation boils down to this: When people appreciate the natural qualities of their environment, they are increasingly taking steps in their communities to conserve what makes that land unique,” said Rand Wentworth, President of the Land Trust Alliance.
“With the federal government reporting that we lose about two million acres to development sprawl each year, private, voluntary conservation gives everyday Americans the tools and resources they need to protect their natural heritage.”
The report stated that the states with the highest total acres conserved are California, Maine, Colorado, Montana, Virginia, New York, Vermont, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
Colorado and Virginia offer state tax incentives for conservation.
The West is the fastest-growing region in both the number of acres saved and the number of land trusts, followed by the Southeast, according to the report.
The Northeast gained the most acreage under conservation easements, nearly tripling the acres held five years ago.
Local and state land trusts increased the acres protected by conservation easements by 148%. These private, voluntary agreements saved 6,245,969 acres in 2005, versus 2,514,566 just five years ago.
The types of land targeted by land trust efforts are natural areas and wildlife habitat (39%), followed by open space (38%) and water resources (26%), especially wetlands.
A new federal tax incentive for donations of conservation easements, enacted in August 2006 and providing special adjustments to help farmers and ranchers, is expected to prompt more large-scale conservation throughout the West.
“The fact is that many ranchers like me simply can’t afford to do a conservation easement without tax incentives that help level the playing field with developers,” said Ogden Driskill, owner of the ranch surrounding Devil’s Tower National Monument in Wyoming. “It’s voluntary, it’s needed, and it’s one of the few ways to keep working ranches like mine intact and in my family.”
