What Can I Do?

1. How can I protect my beautiful natural areas on my land from future development?

By working with a nonprofit land trust, you can decide the best conservation tool to use to protect your land.  You can select from a number of tools, including the outright donation of your property, the donation or sale of a voluntary land agreement (conservation easement) that permanently restricts development, the bargain sale of your property, and several other variations.  You should also get legal advice before embarking on such a decision.

2. Someone is about to develop a beautiful piece of land in my community.  What can I do to stop it?

A land trust such as the Southeast Arizona Land Trust must be selective in choosing land-saving projects.  Unless we exercise care in choosing projects, we may find ourselves stuck with a property or a conservation easement that serves little public interest, is very costly to manage, or does not really fit with our mission.  Realistically, we are also constrained by limited resources. A land trust that does not carefully select its projects may open itself to public criticism, credibility problems and even legal problems.

3. How can I help in achieving the goal of land conservation?

About half of the nation’s land trusts are staffed entirely by volunteers.  At the Southeast Arizona Land Trust, we have two part-time staff and a very engaged Board.  We could use your help on a variety of projects.  Please contact us at (520) 455-5592 or sealt@qwestoffice.net to find out where we need help.  (See the section on Volunteering with us in How to Support SEALT.)