Dear Friends,
With the severe and deadly storms this week in Kentucky and other states, I want to share an abridged email from the Land Trust Alliance concerning Land Trusts and climate change. I also want to share how the New River Land Trust is addressing climate change.
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Drought, wildfires, heat waves, severe storms and flooding. Each year we feel more intense effects from a changing climate. All of us were heartbroken this weekend to see the devastation wrought by tornados in Kentucky and elsewhere. It’s easy to see how people can feel powerless in the face of such tragedy.
Increasingly, though, the work of land trusts is both making a difference and being recognized as critical in the fight against the worst effects of climate change.
There’s another way to protect the environment that may be less apt to inspire headlines but is nevertheless vital. The Land Trust for Tennessee, like other land trusts around the country, offers one of the simplest, least contentious and most effective ways to preserve the privately held fields and forests that serve as wildlife ecosystems and carbon sinks: Convince landowners to save them.
This is the second time this year The New York Times has publicly encouraged supporting the work of land trusts. On Jul. 23, 2021, in “What to Do About Climate Despair,” Erik Vance wrote:
Plants are currently the only surefire way to pull carbon out of our air. That means putting aside land and managing it well. Land trusts try to do just that and often need help with projects or funds to buy more land.
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The New River Land Trust has incorporated climate into its efforts since 2014 and climate factors are part of the assessment that we do for every property or project we consider.
Proactively, we use geospatial tools and analysis techniques to identify areas of climate resilience and vulnerability in our region and then pursue conservation practices that will protect, enhance and restore these areas.
The Land Trust climate system was constructed to highlight locations that are important targets for enduring conservation. This system relies on resilient land and ecological flow data provided by The Nature Conservancy that was customized to the New River region.
I hope that you will consider a donation to the Land Trust to help mitigate climate change and fund land conservation efforts on resilient lands. We can make a difference and be part of the solution.
