No law dictates who can use the label “land trust.” In the absence of strict authority, this guide aims to improve understanding and use of the term by all who encounter it.
A land trust is a charitable organization that exists entirely or in part to acquire and hold land or conservation easements,[i] stewarding these holdings in perpetuity or transferring them to a responsible entity, for conservation purposes.
The conservation purposes may include protecting natural habitat, water quality, or scenic views; ensuring that the land is always available for farming, forestry, or outdoor recreation; or protecting other values provided by predominantly open land.
Land trusts cooperate and negotiate with landowners to complete real estate transactions, sometimes purchasing property interests and sometimes accepting donations of the interests. Land trusts provide for ongoing stewardship of the lands conserved with them to sustain the flow of conservation benefits. They may accomplish this by directly managing the land, transferring the land to an appropriate entity for responsible care, or, in the case of conservation easements, permanently monitoring the privately-owned land to ensure compliance with conservation restrictions.
The term “land trust” is best understood as describing an organization in regard to one of its core functions, not as suggesting that the organization’s operation is limited to that function alone. Many land trusts do more than acquire, hold, steward, or transfer real estate interests. They may run education and science programs, maintain trails and other outdoor recreational facilities, help municipalities with land-use planning, manage historic sites, or engage in any number of other activities. Each organization makes its own decisions regarding its programming and priorities. For example, while the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy pursues conservation projects, it also manages Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater and orchestrates a massive urban greening program.
Most land trusts are independent, private charitable corporations that are tax exempt under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. The board of directors or trustees, which governs and is responsible for the actions of a land trust, is made up of individuals, nearly always volunteers, committed to the organization’s mission. A few land trusts are quasi-governmental agencies that operate with some of the flexibility of a private land trust but whose governance involves some government participation (such as appointment of directors or staff, or control of the budget).
Some land trusts own and operate preserves and recreation areas that are open to the public. Others own no land at all but hold conservation easements. Others work to acquire and then transfer land to governments for use as parks, trails, game lands, or other public spaces. Some engage in all of these activities.
Land trusts may center their work on one or more specific conservation priorities. For example, there are organizations specializing in water quality, trails, farmland preservation, urban gardens, sustainable timber production, and the protection and improvement of natural habitat to enhance biodiversity. Priorities may be strategic operational choices, shifting over time as necessary to address new and changing threats and opportunities in a community, or they may be enshrined in a land trust’s founding documents as its essential reason for being.
An organization is a land trust by virtue of its activities—not its name. Organizations such as Berks Nature, Foundation for Sustainable Forests, French & Pickering Creeks Conservation Trust, Natural Lands, Northcentral Pennsylvania Conservancy, and Wissahickon Trails are all land trusts even though none use the term land trust in their name.
The word conservancy often appears in the names of land trusts. However, don’t assume that the “XYZ Conservancy” is a land trust. It may be an organization wholly dedicated to raising money for public park improvements or be something else entirely.
Some land trusts confine their conservation efforts to a geography as small as a single municipality or neighborhood. A few work nationally or worldwide. The rest work at scales in between.
Some define their service areas by reference to one or more natural features, such as a stream, watershed, or mountain; others may center their mission around a constructed feature, such as a trail.
Some land trusts conserve tens of thousands of acres. Others conserve a single parcel. Some are run entirely by volunteers. Some supplement volunteer efforts with part-time staff or contractors. Others employ a number of full-time staff: one, ten, or, in a few instances, a hundred or more.
Land Trust Standards and Practices are the land trust movement’s ethical and technical guidelines for responsibly operating a land trust. Most well-functioning land trusts have adopted these guidelines and continuously strive to conform to them.
The Land Trust Accreditation Commission exists to confirm land trust conformance with Land Trust Standards and Practices. Accreditation is voluntary. While 480 land trusts are accredited—independently verified as following key practices—land trusts can and do achieve excellence without going through the process.
An organization may focus on public outdoor recreation, nature education, or stream cleanups, and, to the extent that it supports this focus, occasionally engage in land conservation projects. Is the organization a land trust? This guide argues that the answer turns on how the organization defines its mission in its governing documents (e.g., its articles of incorporation, illuminated by its bylaws and formal policy statements). If acquisition and stewardship for conservation are referenced, then the answer is generally “yes”; if not, then less likely so.
An organization that declares the acquisition and stewardship of land for conservation as a core charitable purpose has an obligation to act generally in furtherance of this. An organization without such public declaration has greater freedom to divest land conservation assets to support other organizational interests (assuming no contractual or other legal constraints).
How about community land trusts? The International Center for Community Land Trusts defines a CLT as “a nonprofit corporation that holds land on behalf of a place-based community, while serving as the long-term steward for affordable housing, community garden, civic buildings, commercial spaces and other community assets on behalf of a community.” In general, CLTs are distinguished from conservation land trusts by their missional focus: they typically center housing affordability, community economic development, and related community projects. However, depending on the mission and activities of the specific organization, a community land trust may or may not be reasonably identified as a land trust in the conservation sense.
For-profit land development enterprises may create “land trusts” as title-holding vehicles to hide the identity of property owners from the public, avoid probate, facilitate ownership changes, or serve other non-conservation purposes. These arrangements are unrelated to the land trusts described in this guide.
The first land trust, The Trustees of Reservations, was founded in Massachusetts in 1891. By the mid-twentieth century, Americans had established several dozen land trusts. Today, more than 1,200 land trusts conserve land in communities across the country (a precise count being impossible due to the ambiguities described above).
Land trusts conserve land in all 50 states. To find land trusts working in a particular location, visit the Land Trust Alliance website or, in Pennsylvania, WeConservePA.org/groups.
[i] A conservation easement limits certain uses of the land to advance conservation objectives expressly identified in the agreement that establishes the easement. The owner of an eased property is free to use the land within the agreed-to constraints. As the holder of a conservation easement, the land trust has the right to block uses inconsistent with the objectives and constraints.
