Entries by Margosia Jadkowski

Protecting a haven for endangered wildlife in Southern California

September 18, 2026- The Wilderness Land Trust recently purchased a 41-acre private inholding within the Sespe Wilderness of Southern California. The property sits just up the slope from the popular Agua Blanca Creek Trail, and contains a tributary to Sespe Creek, one of the last free-flowing rivers in Southern California. With it now safeguarded from development, […]

One step closer to wilderness for Snowmass Falls Ranch

September 4, 2026- The Wilderness Land Trust has been partnering with Pitkin County, Colorado on a landmark conservation project to protect the 650-acre Snowmass Falls Ranch. The property, which is the largest private inholding in the Maroon Bells-Snowmass Wilderness, has been on the Trust’s radar as a priority acquisition for three decades. In February 2024, […]

What the Roadless Rule means for wilderness

August 21, 2026- This week, the Trump Administration released a new proposed rule and draft environmental impact statement that would fully rescind the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The 2001 rule limited road building and commercial timber harvests on 45 million acres of National Forest. Some reporting on this has created confusion about which jurisdictions and […]

Join us in welcoming Maura Sullivan as Director of Major Gifts!

August 7, 2026- We are excited to announce that Maura Sullivan has joined the Trust staff as our new Director of Major Gifts. “I’m thrilled to welcome Maura Sullivan to The Wilderness Land Trust as our Director of Major Gifts. Maura brings with her more than two decades of conservation fundraising experience and a proven […]

280 acres protected in New Mexico’s Cebolla Wilderness

July 27, 2026- Periodically, the Trust sends out letters to landowners of private inholdings within designated wilderness areas introducing ourselves and letting them know that if they are ever interested in selling, we’d love to work with them. This, along with partners bringing projects to us and landowners hearing about our work from neighbors or […]

Conservation as caretaking: protecting California’s central coast

July 10, 2026- Three years ago, The Wilderness Land Trust purchased a 160-acre parcel in California’s Ventana Wilderness from the San Francisco Zen Center. Previously part of their Tassajara Mountain Zen Center, the Church Creek property overlooks the ridges and valleys of the interior coastal range. Last week we completed the transfer of the property […]

The Cost of Private Inholdings in Wildfire Management

June 26, 2026- Right now, somewhere in the West, a wildfire is burning and fire managers are studying maps, calculating risk, and making decisions that will shape a landscape for the next century. When that fire burns near one of the 3,000 private properties that sit in the middle of designated wilderness, how those decisions […]

Building impact across a landscape in the San Juan Mountains

June 12, 2026- The Wilderness Land Trust recently acquired Eastern Rebel Boy, a 6.7-acre property within the Red Cloud Peak Wilderness Study Area of southwest Colorado. Like so many of the small properties we work to protect, there is inherent value in removing every opportunity for development within our wild places, no matter the size. […]