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| Preserving natural areas, rural and historical features of the River Raisin Watershed |
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Land Trusts Stand Ready, Able To Protect Land In Partnership with States, Cities[The following editorial viewpoint is reprinted with permission from the Land Trust Alliance. The LTA is a networking and resource organization that aids member land trusts such as the RVLT. It enables us to perform our function with the assurance of a larger professional perspective. We hope you appreciate how the land trust “movement” is growing and adapting its land use mission.] by Jean Hocker Nonprofit land trusts have succeeded as no other organizations in protecting open spaces threatened by the sprawling, haphazard development that is eating away landscapes we once took for granted. Indeed, local and regional land trusts have protected 4.7 million acres of open space in thousands of communities, where their local presence allows them to know the land and the landowners personally. Land trusts that work at a national scale have protected millions more acres. Together, the nation’s 1,200-plus land trusts have garnered the support and admiration of millions of Americans for their unique and lasting work in an era when the nation is losing some 7,000 acres of open space each day. The growth and success of land trusts is a vivid sign of the public’s deep concern about this loss. So is the unprecedented cry for open space at the polls last November, when voters passed 84 percent of 148 state and local ballot initiatives, which will bring more than $5 billion in new public funding for open space. Now politicians in Washington are listening to the people, too. The Administration’s budget for Fiscal Year 2000 includes more than $1 billion for land conservation, including $442 million for the Land and Water Conservation Fund to add to our national open space legacy; $150 million in matching grants to state and local governments for land protection; $50 million in grants to states to buy conservation easements on working forest lands; $50 million to buy easements on farmland; $40 million to enlarge urban forests; and $183 million to protect oceans, coastlines, estuaries, and fisheries. The Administration has also proposed an innovative tax credit plan to encourage communities to issue bonds for open space and other conservation purposes. Meanwhile, both Republican and Democratic lawmakers are proposing their own plans to increase federal support for open space. We applaud these initiatives and urge quick Congressional action, so that conserving green space for all Americans will become a true federal, state, and local partnership. As public decision makers craft their plans, we hope they will take full advantage of the knowledge and experience of land trusts: their skill in using a range of land conservation tools, their sensitivity to local conditions and needs, and their innovation in bringing people together to resolve differences. Land trusts can be invaluable partners with their public colleagues in conserving open space. For example:
As long overdue public investment in open space moves forward, that investment will return even greater dividends if it encourages and nourishes participation of the nation’s land trusts. These mostly community-based organizations are the very embodiment of our profound desire for green space in our lives — and the lives of our grandchildren. Moreover, they know the nuts and bolts of land conservation. Land trusts are natural partners in preserving our nation’s land legacy. And the job at hand will require all the partners we can find. | Contents | |||
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In Michigan, the townships of Readmond and Friendship gained a public park after Little Traverse Conservancy secured private donations and a $675,000 grant from the Michigan Natural Resources Trust to purchase a beach along a six-mile stretch that previously had no publicly-accessible waterfront.