Howdy (Conservation) Partner!

31 Mar Howdy (Conservation) Partner!

31 March 2026

By David Allen, Development for Conservation

When your land trust lists its conservation partners, what does that list look like?

Does it include State agencies? Federal agencies? Local government agencies? Tribes? The Nature Conservancy? Other conservation nonprofits?

All of the above?

My guess is that the list does NOT include conservation easement landowners. Landowners who share conservation responsibilities with the land trust who holds the conservation easement.

Or donors, who contribute directly or indirectly to the project, making it land protection and perpetual stewardship possible.

I’m not going to make this post about listing all the people who have contributed in any way as partners. That would be insane. But I am going to point out that by not thinking about them as partners, at best we are missing opportunities for deeper relationships. And at worst we are demeaning their contributions.

First, consider how we think about conservation easement landowners. In many cases, they are considered adversaries. Or at least potential adversaries. We talk about easement “enforcement” and easement “defense.” We “monitor” the properties looking for “violations.”

In a recent post about something else, UK blogger Mark Phillips told a story about people’s attitudes about the Royal Mail, which seemed completely random and polarized. Researchers expected public opinion to correlate with whether the mail was delivered on time or not. In fact, it correlated with how well the customers liked their local “postie.”

There’s a lesson there for every land trust working with landowners. As we reach for less and less human contact – through drive-by monitoring and increasing use of drones – we are also losing the idea that the landowner and we are conservation partners. For the conservation values to be truly protected, and stay protected, it will take both of us working together. When one of us sees the other as an adversary, we both lose eventually.

Now consider relationships with donors. Our organizational rhetoric tends to position donors as supporting OUR work. OUR mission. OUR projects, and OUR accomplishments. We talk about the need to educate the donor (and the public). And instead of embracing their largesse with visible connections to conservation outcomes, we trivialize it with trinkets and matching gift opportunities.

What would it look like if we thought of conservation easement landowners and donors as vital conservation partners? Would we:

• Spend one-on-one time together more often?
• Communicate more often and more personally?
• Look for common ground and common understanding of conservation goals within dynamic systems?
• Discuss THEIR dreams and aspirations for the land?
• Overtly provide advance notice of major initiatives and events?
• Invite their opinions about conservation issues that emerge?
• Show gratitude in more ways and over a longer period of time?
• Openly share credit?

I see conservation easement landowner stewardship and donor stewardship as suffering from the same malaise. In both cases, many land trusts do not have enough operations budget to handle the work involved when it includes building and sustaining healthy relationships with conservation partners. But instead of increasing the budget to allow for better relationships, we focus on doing more and more with less and less. We reach for technological efficiencies like drive-by monitoring, drones, e-News, and digital marketing. The people we should care most about – our conservation partners – don’t know us. And they don’t have a chance to like us. How many will become the customers who don’t like or don’t know their local postie? And who form a negative opinion of the land trust as a result?

Fellow consultant Marc Smiley once said that land isn’t protected because an easement is recorded on the deed. It’s protected when the local community cares enough to invest when times are good and defend when times are bad.

Like a conservation partner would.

Cheers, and Have a great week.

-da

PS: Your comments on these posts are welcomed and warmly requested. If you have not posted a comment before, or if you are using a new email address, please know that there may be a delay in seeing your posted comment. That’s my SPAM defense at work. I approve all comments as soon as I am able during the day.

Photo by Tharushi Jayawardana courtesy of Pixabay