The Land Trust of Virginia (LTV) was originally formed in 1991 as the first statewide nonprofit

land trust Land trusts are nonprofit organizations which own and manage land, and sometimes waters. There are three common types of land trust, distinguished from one another by the ways in which they are legally structured and by the purposes for which th ...

in the

Commonwealth of Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern United States, Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United Stat ...

. LTV uses a legal tool called a

conservation easement In the United States, a conservation easement (also called conservation covenant, conservation restriction or conservation servitude) is a power invested in a qualified private land conservation organization (often called a "land trust") or gove ...

to help landowners voluntarily protect scenic, historic or environmentally sensitive lands while keeping the land in private ownership and open for compatible uses, including forestry, farming, recreation and limited residential uses. The Land Trust of Virginia is headquartered near

Middleburg, Virginia Middleburg is a town in Loudoun County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 673 as of the 2010 census. It is the southernmost town along Loudoun County's shared border with Fauquier County. Middleburg is known as the "Nation's Horse an ...

and has protected more than 151 properties and 16,049 acres (40 km²) throughout the state. The greatest density of easements are in

Loudoun Loudoun ( gd, Lughdan) is a parish in East Ayrshire, Scotland and lies between five and ten miles east of Kilmarnock. The parish roughly encompasses the northern half of the Upper-Irvine Valley and borders Galston Parish (which encompasses the ...

and Fauquier Counties, but LTV also holds easements in Clarke, Rappahannock, Culpeper, Madison, Hanover, and Green Counties. In 2009, the Land Trust of Virginia was accredited by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the national

Land Trust Alliance Land Trust Alliance is a nature conservation organization, based in Washington, D.C. The Alliance represents many land trusts across the United States. History Originally formed as the Land Trust Exchange in Boston on February 22, 1982, Allan Spa ...

. The Land Trust of Virginia is one of the first 54 land trusts in the nation – and the second in Virginia - to receive such a designation.

References

External links

*{{Official website, http://www.landtrustva.org/ Land trusts in Virginia Organizations established in 1991 1991 establishments in Virginia