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What is a Land Trust?
North Carolina land trusts are non-profit conservation organizations that protect natural areas of significant ecological, scenic, recreational, agricultural, cultural, or historic value. Land trusts work locally to protect the lands that are most important to the communities they serve. Land trusts combine grassroots passion for the land and community roots with professional and entrepreneurial business practices. Land trusts permanently protect land through acquisition of the land or the rights to develop it, through either purchase or donation.
North Carolina is home to 23 local and regional land trusts. These land trusts are saving the rich biological and cultural diversity of the state. From the coast to the mountains, North Carolina has an abundance of beautiful and unique natural resources – coastal marshes, bucolic farmland, cascading waterfalls, mountain landscapes, and clean free-flowing streams. Sadly, the state is losing many of these cherished resources as poorly managed development destroys more than 400 acres of natural lands per day. To date, North Carolina’s land trusts have protected over 161,000 acres in over 820 places.
People who love their communities and understand what is important to the people who live there. Land trusts range in size from small, local organizations operated by volunteers to large, regional organizations managed by professional staff. Their boards of directors are comprised of volunteer leaders drawn from the communities and regions they serve.
Ordinary people who share a common interest in protecting nature, wildlife, agriculture, and a high quality of life for themselves and future generations. In many cases the protection initiatives come from the landowners themselves. In all cases, the land trust and landowner work together to create a protection strategy that meets the conservation needs of the land as well as the financial needs of the landowner.
People from all walks of life committed to preserving a positive relationship with the land. Land trust supporters desire clean water and air for their families, accessible parks and greenways, flourishing farms that supply local food needs, and habitats that support a diversity of wildlife.
What values do North Carolina and trusts have in common?
The 23 North Carolina land trusts have adopted the standards and practices of the Land Trust Alliance, the national umbrella organization for land trusts, to ensure the highest standards are followed in relation to the land, landowners, and donors.
North Carolina land trusts partner with each other and a variety of other conservation organizations and other stakeholders to make conservation work for everyone. Land trusts are committed to using non-adversarial and non-confrontational methods to achieve their goals.
North Carolina land trusts work with local citizens, businesses, and governments to preserve large tracts of land, such as the 17,820 acre Rollins Tract in the western Piedmont protected by Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina, and small tracts of land, such as the single half-acre of green space in downtown Highlands protected by the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust.
Land trusts are passionately committed to saving the places you love in North Carolina – forests, streams, marshes, farms. North Carolina land trusts are committed to using voluntary strategies that blend with the values of the people involved and preserve both private property and economic growth.
Land trusts promise to steward and monitor properties in perpetuity, to ensure that the conservation values of the land are never compromised.
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