National Land Trusts
The new overlords did not understand this. They did not include soil, plants, or birds in their ideas of mutuality. The dividends of such a balanced economy were too modest. They envisaged farms not only around, but in the marsh. An epidemic of ditch-digging and land-booming set in. The marsh was gridironed with drainage canals, speckled with new fields and farmsteads.
Aldo Leopold, Marshland Elegy in A Sand County Almanac
The Land Trust Alliance, (http://www.landtrustalliance.org) a national nonprofit that provides guidance and support for land trusts throughout the country, reported in their 2010 National Land Census that national, state and local land trust had conserved forty-seven million acres of land. This represents the work of 1,723 organizations of which twenty-four are categorized as national trusts. The Land Trust Alliance is an umbrella organization that provides land trust standards and practices (http://www.landtrustalliance.org/training/sp) along with an accreditation process. These are important resources for the land trusts and the giving public who rely on oversight organizations to assure that their donations are being managed appropriately. In addition the Land Trust Alliance offers training programs for land trust management and staff and publications such as the Wetland and Stream Mitigation: A Handbook for Land Trusts which is located on their web site at (http://www.elistore.org/Data/products/d22_04.pdf) .
National land trusts are as varied as people; they come in all sizes and represent diverse interests from gardening to conserving land and restoring wetland. On the next page you will find a list of the major national land trusts, their mission and web site. While they are all worthy of an in depth discussion, this site will focus on the extensive wetland program implemented by Ducks Unlimited and its affiliates in each state. The mission statement of Ducks Unlimited can be encapsulated in two words, habitat conservation. Organized in 1937, they are celebrating their 75th anniversary in 2012. They have affiliates in every state, Canada and Mexico and have directly conserved 12.7 million acres in North America. As of 2012 the organization reported influencing conservation projects through private, nonprofit and governmental organizations, which amounted to another 95.9 million acres. Their primary programs focus on waterfowl biology and habitat, land protection and influencing public policy. The importance of participating with other organizations to achieve conservation goals is reflected in the inspiring stories of wetland preservation and remediation found at (http://www.ducks.org/media/Conservation/Reports/newengland.pdf).
Why is the work of Ducks Unlimited and other conservation land trusts so important? Because we are at a point where we need a concerted effort to save wetlands. The U. S. Geological Survey estimates that over 200 million acres of wetlands have been lost since Europeans first settled North America, “While some trends are very subtle, these data on the Nation's wetlands loss provide a clear indication that continued loss will jeopardize a valuable resource. Over a 200-year timespan, wetland acreage has diminished to the point where environmental and even socio-economic benefits (i.e., ground water supply and water quality, shoreline erosion, floodwater storage and trapping of sediments, and climatic changes) are now seriously threatened”.