Living Lands

Home Connect and Share Find Land Trusts and Conservation Groups National and Regional Conservation Partners Defenders of Wildlife Living Lands

Living Lands

Living Lands is a Defenders of Wildlife project to increase the capacity of local land trusts to protect, enhance and restore native wildlife habitat and biodiversity. The project assists land trusts in making strategic decisions about

where to work to conserve high priority native species and habitats, and
how to use effective land stewardship to restore and manage native habitats for long-term benefit.

The end result is better protection for wildlife and biodiversity and greater support for land trusts through increased funding, community support, and security from litigation.

Learn More

Success Stories from Living Lands

© Thomas Barnes (Using Conservation Forestry to Preserve a Legacy Featured Image)

Using Conservation Forestry to Preserve a Legacy

by Donna Alexander
In 1995, a grand discovery was made on a hidden 3,000-acre tract within the vast 110-mile forested corridor of southeastern Kentucky's Pine Mountain. The landscape level effort to protect one of the state's largest contiguous blocks of forestland hinges on both land acquisition and conservation forestry easements.

Read More
© Stephen Ingram (LL_Blending Ranching and Wildlife Conservation Featured Image)

Blending Ranching and Wildlife Conservation

by Living Lands
Bill Bramlette and his family have grazed livestock on their 900-acre ranch in eastern California since the 1920s. When he approached the Eastern Sierra Land Trust about placing a conservation easement on his land, the stage was set to combine landscape-scale habitat conservation with active cattle ranching to protect a wealth of cultural, historic and natural resources.

Read More
© Nisqually Land Trust (LL_WA_Niqually_Landtrust Featured Image)

Engaging Communities In Conservation

by Joe Kane
Faced with a timber company's intention to log a heavily forested ridge along the highway leading to Mount Rainier National Park, Living Landsconvinced them to hold off for three months, and at the eleventh hour won a $1.4 million Cooperative Endangered Species Conservation Fund grant to buy out the clearcut.

Read More
© Sudbury Valley Trustees (LL_MA_Shrubland_Habitat_Management Featured Image)

Shrubland Habitat Management - Bittersweet Success

by Laura Mattei
Never underestimate the determination of oriental bittersweet. That's just one of the many lessons that Sudbury Valley Trustees has learned over the past three years while restoring shrubland habitat at their Cedar Hill Reservation in Northborough, Massachusetts.

Read More