Natural Lands Trust
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| Founded | 1953 |
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| Type | Environmental |
| Location | |
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Area served
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Pennsylvania, New Jersey |
| Website | www |
Natural Lands Trust (NLT) is a non-profit land conservation organization with headquarters in Media, Pennsylvania, dedicated to the management, protection, and conservation of eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey’s native forests, fields, steams, and wetlands. The organization owns and manages 43 nature preserves—totaling more than 22,000 acres—located in 13 counties in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Eighteen of the preserves are open to the public for recreational use; the others have limited visitation due to the presence of sensitive ecosystems or limited facilities.
In addition to owning and managing preserves, Natural Lands Trust preserves land by working with private land owners to establish and enforce conservation easements. A conservation easement is a voluntary but legally binding agreement that permanently limits a property’s use. To date, NLT holds easements on nearly 20,000 acres on nearly 900 properties, most of which are located in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Natural Lands Trust also provides a range of consulting services to Pennsylvania municipalities (152 municipalities in 26 counties, to date). These services include redrafting a township’s zoning ordinances to incorporate open space, thereby using development to save land.
Natural Lands Trust has been accredited by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the Land Trust Alliance, which endorses a land trust’s ability to “operate in an ethical, legal, and technically sound manner and ensure the long-term protection of land in the public interest.”
To date, Natural Lands Trust has saved more than 125,000 acres of land in its nearly 64-year history. This is equal to about half the total acreage of Pennsylvania's state park system.
“Natural Lands Trust is a non-profit land conservation organization dedicated to protecting the forests, fields, streams, and wetlands that are essential to the sustainability of life in eastern Pennsylvania and southern New Jersey. [NLT applies] a comprehensive approach to conservation that includes permanently protecting natural areas, providing leadership in natural resource management, and creating opportunities for people to connect to and learn from nature.” The organization’s approach to conservation includes:
Natural Lands Trust was founded in 1953 as the Philadelphia Conservationists, Inc., by a group of birdwatchers who wanted to protect what is now the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge, a tidal freshwater marsh in Tinicum Township, Pennsylvania. Led by Allston Jenkins, a local accountant who was new to birding when he founded the organization, The Philadelphia Conservationists achieved their goal of protecting the Tinicum Marsh from being filled with sediment dredged from nearby waterways by the following year. Allston Jenkins (1903-1994) became Natural Land Trust’s first president and executive director, and was an active member within the organization until his death.
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