Your Impact
Why Be a Part of Give Back to the Land Day?
Each participating land trust is working towards the goal of conserving land to create a thriving local environment that supports the health of all who live, work, and play here.
Franklin Land Trust
Franklin Land Trust is a nonprofit organization that works to conserve farms, forests, wildlands, and other natural resources significant to the quality of the environment, economy and rural character of our region. FLT was established in 1987 to celebrate the landscape, the history, and the rural culture of western Massachusetts. Franklin Land Trust works to ensure, through a program of land conservation and stewardship, that the historic pattern of field, woodland and village will endure for the benefit of generations to come. In the process it has conserved over 37,000 acres.
Hilltown Land Trust
Hilltown Land Trust is a nonprofit land trust serving 13 rural towns in Western Massachusetts. HLT’s mission is to protect land and promote ecological diversity and health, respectful land stewardship, historic character, and natural beauty in our hilltowns. The organization has protected over 5,000 acres of farmland, forest, streams and wetlands since its founding in 1986. In 2010, HLT affiliated with The Trustees to combine the efforts and resources of these two nonprofit land conservation organizations and accelerate the pace of land conservation in the hilltowns.
Kestrel Land Trust
Kestrel Land Trust is a nonprofit organization based in Amherst that conserves and cares for forests, farms, and riverways in the Connecticut River Valley of Western Massachusetts, while nurturing an enduring love of the land. Kestrel has conserved more than 36,000 acres of wildlands, woodlands, farmland, and riverlands in the heart of the valley and the hilltowns since 1970, in partnership with willing landowners, communities, the Commonwealth and federal agencies.
Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust
Mount Grace Land Conservation Trust is a nonprofit organization that benefits the environment, the economy, and future generations by protecting significant agricultural, natural, and scenic lands and encouraging land stewardship in northern and central Massachusetts. In 36 years, Mount Grace has helped to conserve 37,000 acres of precious open spaces, wildlands, woodlands, and farms.
Connecticut River Conservancy
The Connecticut River Conservancy restores and advocates for clean water, healthy habitats, and resilient communities to support a diverse and thriving watershed. CRC has built a restoration program that has removed 24 dams and planted over 97,000 trees and native shrubs to restore hundreds of miles of rivers and habitat for fish passage. CRC has also developed robust community science programs for water quality sampling, aquatic invasive species removal, and migratory fish monitoring; maintained steady and effective advocacy for strong environmental standards on permits, regulations, and licenses throughout the watershed; and grown the annual Source to Sea Cleanup into a nationally recognized event that not removes trash from our waterways (over 78K lbs. collected by volunteers in 2024 alone), but advances solutions to stop trash before it starts.