Our Mission Statement
The Montana Association of Land Trusts' mission is to promote and support excellence in private voluntary land conservation in Montana through leadership, collaboration, education and outreach.
About the Montana Association of Land Trusts
The Montana Association of Land Trusts is a group of 12 separate nonprofit land trust organizations working on private land conservation and voluntary conservation agreements throughout the state of Montana.
The Montana Association of Land Trusts, with offices in Helena and Whitehall, coordinates the land trust organizations from a legislative, administrative, communications and policy standpoint.
The Montana Association of Land Trusts is comprised of these 12 private, nonprofit members:
- Prickly Pear Land Trust, Helena
- Gallatin Valley Land Trust, Bozeman
- The Trust for Public Land, Bozeman
- Flathead Land Trust, Kalispell
- Montana Land Reliance, Helena
- Five Valleys Land Trust, Missoula
- Bitter Root Land Trust, Hamilton
- The Conservation Fund, Missoula
- Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Missoula
- The Vital Ground Foundation, Missoula
- The Nature Conservancy of Montana, Helena
- Clark Fork-Pend Oreille Conservancy
The 12 land trusts work with private landowners to obtain conservation easements that maintain working farms and ranches, protect water quality, protect wildlife habitat, preserve open lands and retain the values that make Montana such an attractive place to live, work and recreate.
Land trusts negotiate voluntary agreements with landowners that restrict commercial development and residential subdivisions on the property. In essence, land trusts acquire, and then retire, development rights of the property. Conservation easements have potential federal estate tax and federal income tax benefits for landowners. Some land trusts also are active on local or county open lands bond initiatives and several land trusts have active trails and outdoor recreation programs.
Montana land trusts have assisted private landowners in conserving over one million acres in the state since 1978.
Glenn Marx, former publisher of a weekly newspaper in Whitehall, assumed full-time duties as association's first executive director in July 2006. Glenn is a former staffer for governors Stan Stephens and Marc Racicot and for former congressman Ron Marlenee, and has extensive natural resource policy, legislative and political experience.
