Land Trusts & Longleaf
January 1, 2022
Safeguarding and Restoring Longleaf for the Future
Private, not-for-profit land and environmental conservation organizations, known as land trusts or conservancies, are actively involved in longleaf pine habitat protection and restorative management activities across the species’ entire range.
In combination, land trusts hold hundreds of permanent conservation easements on private properties and own reserves themselves containing longleaf pine habitats that encompass many thousands of acres.
Opportunity to Strengthen Partnerships
With the majority of southern forestland in private ownership, local land trusts are crucial partners in longleaf restoration and conservation. These organizations have established relationships and hold conservation easements with hundreds of private landowners who demonstrate sincere conservation commitments to longleaf protection into the future.
Those already engaged with longleaf, including non-profits, government agencies, and local longleaf partnerships, can strengthen their collaborations with land trust networks to cooperatively increase landowner engagement and assist more private owners of longleaf pine forests.
Survey to Land Trusts
In 2020, Charles Roe and Julie Moore with Southern Conservation Partners (SCP) surveyed private land conservation organizations across the natural range of longleaf pine, asking about their accomplishments and challenges supporting longleaf pine conservation on private lands. To share the survey results and engage the longleaf community with the explementary work of these organizations, SCP partnered with The Longleaf Alliance to offer two virtual panels, one at the 13th Biennial Longleaf Conference in October 2020 and a second webinar in May 2021.
Most recently an article published in The Longleaf Leader entitled “Land Trusts- Safeguarding and Restoring Longleaf for the Future,” presented the survey findings and highlighted six land trusts activley engaged in safeguarding and restoring longleaf pine in their geographic areas.
Longleaf Land Trusts
Each of these land trusts protects and restores longleaf pine natural habitats by a combination of conserving and managing existing stands, restoration, and new planting activities. See the full list with survey summaries HERE.
*Additional land trusts may hold conservation easements over tracts containing longleaf pine, but did not respond to inquiries.