Land Trust of Virginia

HELP LAND TRUST OF VIRGINIA PROTECT WORKING FARMLAND

Land Trust of Virginia would love to highlight and ask for your contribution to our Malcolm Baldwin Farmer's Fund, in honor of LTV’s former board member and lifelong conservationist, Malcolm Forbes Baldwin. Created in 2019, the Fund was formed to underwrite the fees for conservation easements on properties that have historically been in agricultural use. Typically, these fees are paid by the easement donor but in some cases, it may be in the best interest of LTV to offer financial assistance to a landowner in order to get the property conserved.

The Baldwin Farmer's Fund has supported the conservation of five special properties since its inception, including Bernice Rowe's 419-acre property that has been farmed by her family since the 1960's. When asked about why she pursued an easement, Rowe said:

“This is my contribution to the land that my father farmed and loved and that my family lives on. This marks my stewardship of the land. Too much wonderful farmland disappears yearly from development and will never return to agriculture, and I wanted my property to avoid this fate. From now on, it is protected for all who live on the land to enjoy the change of seasons and crop rotations and watch the woodlands and wildlife exist in harmony.”

LTV currently has over 7,500 acres in conservation across Fauquier, Culpeper, Rappahannock and Madison Counties. With our Baldwin Farmer's Fund, we hope to assist many more families to permanently protect their farmland. 

WHAT'S AN EASEMENT?

Decades ago communities across our country – while appreciating their local, state and federal efforts to protect land – came to understand that it was not enough, as they watched valuable open spaces within their communities being lost to development. So, a quiet movement started in which private citizens started to form local land trusts, taking conservation of the land within their communities into their own hands, organizing and informing their neighbors of the important role of conservation easements. Today, there are approximately 2,400 private land trusts in the country; 28 in Virginia. Most of these have a  local geographic focus.  

A conservation easement is a private legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust, such as the Land Trust of Virginia, that protects land and its conservation values permanently. Together the landowner and the land trust craft the legal easement document so that it protects the significant natural and cultural attributes of the land. The landowner still owns their property but the conservation easement is a permanent legal document that gets recorded with the property’s deed and travels with the property even when the property changes ownership.

Conservation easements are a strategy for protection and provide the opportunity for improvement of water quality, preservation of cultural and historic sites, protection of our plant and animal communities, sustaining working landscapes and natural areas, and enhancing our quality of life. 

ABOUT US

Founded in 1992, Land Trust of Virginia was formed out of concern that our beautiful countryside, agricultural fields, and historic sites, were being lost forever to development. Volunteers rallied to contact private landowners and encourage them to permanently retire their properties’ development potential through a legal process called a conservation easement. These easement documents are recorded with the deed and forever travel with the ownership of the property.

To-date, LTV has helped 240 landowners conserve their properties through conservation easements resulting in a total of 30,721 acres across 31 Virginia counties. Through the generous leadership of these landowners, farms, fields, forests, wildlife habitat, water ways, wetlands, and our history have been forever protected.

LTV remains the Commonwealth’s premiere land trust. We hold more conservation easements than any other private land trust in the Commonwealth and are accredited by the national Land Trust Alliance, a certification that marks our quality of work and ethical standards. 

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