Across the United States, local citizens and communities have joined to save the places they cherish by establishing land trusts. These nonprofit, community-based conservation organizations acquire and protect land for the public good. Land trusts provide local communities with effective champions and long-term caretakers of their critical land resources. The nation’s 1,700 + land trusts work with communities to acquire and manage land for permanent conservation and then steward the land for public benefit. Land trusts have been extraordinarily successful, having protected more than 37 million acres of land, according to the National Land Trust Census.