June 13, 2025-

During his first term, President Trump signed the Great American Outdoors and Dingell Acts into law, permanently authorizing and funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) with broad bipartisan support. Since LWCF was first established in 1964— the same year the Wilderness Act was passed— it has used revenue from offshore oil and gas leases to fund conservation and recreation projects across the country, everything from expanding wilderness areas to building parks and playgrounds enjoyed by our communities. LWCF is critical to our work at the Trust, funding the majority of our transfers of properties to public ownership. 

Despite benefitting diverse communities in every state, for over 50 years LWCF wasn’t secure. The Great American Outdoors and Dingell Acts changed that, clearly establishing what LWCF could fund, defining how its $900 million would be allocated across its different programs each year, and removing the burdensome step of Congress having to reauthorize the funds every few years. To many, signing them into law was the shining conservation achievement of President Trump’s first term.

Given that history, when President Trump recently released his budget request to Congress, many were surprised to see it propose diverting over 40% of annual LWCF funds away from their intended use and programs to pay for deferred maintenance on public lands, virtually eliminating LWCF’s conservation acquisition program. As this would violate the laws governing LWCF, the administration has also asked for legislative changes to allow the fund to be used for different purposes, effectively weakening the strong protections for it put in place just five years ago. Adequately funding the management and maintenance of our public lands is critical, and the Great American Outdoors Act also created the Legacy Restoration Fund, which provides up to $1.9 billion each year, also from oil and gas leases, specifically to do just that. Authorization for the Legacy Restoration Fund runs out this year, but legislation has already been introduced to extend it. While both conservation acquisitions and maintenance are important on our public lands, there is no reason for them to be pitted against each other when separate funding sources exist for both. 

It’s no coincidence that the Wilderness Act and LWCF passed the same year— they work hand in hand. While the Wilderness Act laid out a pathway for private inholdings to be added to the wilderness surrounding them, LWCF was created to include a specific account for acquiring these critical wilderness inholdings. To weaken LWCF is to weaken our ability to carry out the vision of the Wilderness Act. While we’re not an advocacy organization, it is important for us to address how our work, and the places we work to protect, would be impacted by political actions: The proposed changes to LWCF funding would have a profoundly negative impact on our mission.

It is now up to Congress to decide whether or not to include these changes in their appropriations process. We have joined other conservation organizations in educating our senators and representatives about the importance of protecting LWCF for our public lands. In the meantime, with your support, we will continue to acquire properties in and around wilderness areas across the country, and will patiently hold them until they can safely be protected as public lands.

Learn more about LWCF and the coalition working to protect it here!

May 16, 2025-

When most people turn on their taps at home, they are unaware of the journey the clean water flowing from it has taken to reach them. Whether pumped from deep in the ground, collected from streams and rivers into reservoirs, or traversing hundreds of miles through complex networks of aqueduct and pipes, that water all comes from somewhere. And for over 60 million of us, that somewhere is a National Forest.

While National Forests cover only 8% of the land area of the lower 48 states, 18% of the water supply in those states originates in National Forests and Grasslands. In western states that number is much higher at 50% of the water supply. About a quarter of this total supply from National Forests comes from designated wilderness areas.

If you recall your 3rd grade lessons about the water cycle, these statistics shouldn’t come as a surprise: most watersheds originate high in the mountains, landscapes that are often protected as public lands. But as Congress considers selling off public lands as part of budget reconciliation bills, the economic value of these water sources is a critical part of the equation. A conservative estimate of the value of clean water supplied from National Forests every single year is $3.7 billion.

New York City has the largest unfiltered drinking water supply in the United States, serving over 9 million people. In the 1990s, as the quality of their drinking water supply was impacted by upstream development, the city was confronted with the prospect of having to construct a filtration plant which would cost upwards of $10 billion to build and $1 million each day to operate. Instead, they invested in conservation initiatives across the watersheds supplying their water: buying land to prevent development, stabilizing stream channels to prevent erosion, and upgrading upstream wastewater treatment systems. In total, the city has spent $2.5 billion on these efforts since 1997, a fraction of what it would have cost to build the filtration plant and operate it for the past almost 30 years.

This case study is a great example of how the cost of protecting the landscapes where our water comes from is far less than the cost of treating that water to be clean and safe if those landscapes are developed and their watersheds are degraded. Protecting watersheds, including those which supply public drinking water, is just one of the conservation values that we focus our work on at the Trust. It’s no coincidence that many of our projects are named after the creeks they protect. Healthy ecosystems provide a more sophisticated water filtration system than any plant we construct, and investing in their protection has benefits that ripple across all areas of life, from the air we breathe to opportunities for adventure and solitude.

April 18, 2025-

Unless you’re a wilderness practitioner or researcher, you probably haven’t been keeping up with the debate playing out in the pages of the International Journal of Wilderness about the intersection of virtual reality and wilderness.

Through a series of articles, Keely Fisher, a researcher at Ohio State University, and writer Paul Keeling explore how the advent of virtual reality (VR) is impacting our connection to and conceptualizations of wilderness. Through these VR experiences, users can traverse a trail or take in the views from a mountain peak through a “computer-simulated environment using graphics and specialty hardware that allows for a person to control their point of view and creates a completely immersive and realistic experience”.

Fisher points out that people have always related to wilderness through documentation of it, whether in paintings, photos, or video. Experiencing these representations of wilderness can often evoke the same emotions as in-person wilderness experiences, like awe, wonder, and inspiration. Fisher’s research shows that these emotions can also be triggered by VR experiences of wilderness, as can many of the (physical and mental) health benefits of time spent in nature, especially for those not physically able to visit wilderness due to age or disability. In short, Fisher concludes that while VR and real-world wilderness experiences are not the same, VR can evoke some of the same benefits, including fostering a connection between people and wild places which can be important in their protection.

Keeling, on the other hand, views VR representations of wilderness as antithetical to the idea of wilderness itself: “What is admirable and valuable in wilderness are (among other things) the other-than-human forces that have contributed to its making independently of human purposes. A wilderness experience machine, on the other hand, is wholly the product of human purpose, intention, and design, which explain its very existence.” For Keeling, while experiencing the documentation of wilderness through a VR experience may give the viewer some of the same psychological and health benefits as an in-person experience of the same place, the fabrication of the experience is not equal to the experience itself, and while “such virtual wilderness experience might point to real wilderness as something worth connecting to but would not itself be a connection with wilderness at all.”

As is the case for many academic debates, their back and forth becomes semantic at points. But it reminded me of the diversity of perspectives and experiences of wilderness that we often see reflected when talking to our community of Trust supporters and partners. While designated wilderness is defined in the 1964 Wilderness Act, what the concept of wilderness means, and how we experience it, is different for each of us. For some, their connection to wilderness comes from experiences in the wildest landscapes they can find, far from crowded trailheads or cell service. For some, car camping in a state park or a hike on a close-to-home trail evoke the same feelings of appreciation for the natural world that drive their support of wilderness conservation. And for others, it is that wilderness exists absent of people and their experience of it that makes it so valuable. Our own personal relationships to wilderness are also likely to shift over our lifetimes, as our physical abilities may change, as we bring along small children, or as where we live and what is accessible to us change.

One of the most inspiring parts of our work at the Trust are these conversations we have when we sit down with a donor, landowner, agency or community partner and see where our own unique sets of values and experiences overlap with the Trust’s mission. No one perspective is more valuable than another. What is considered wilderness and how we should relate to it isn’t dictated in the pages of an academic journal, it is a reflection of our ever evolving personal and collective understanding of it. So whether the idea of putting on a set of VR goggles to revisit a favorite trail appeals to you personally, it doesn’t mean it can’t be a meaningful experience for someone else. Wilderness itself brings together people with diverse backgrounds and points of view, and we should ensure that we create space in our community of wilderness lovers and advocates where all are welcome.

March 21, 2025-

You may have noticed this seal of accreditation on our website or outreach materials in the past. Awarded by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, an independent program of the Land Trust Alliance, it is given to land trusts meeting the highest national standards for excellence and conservation permanence, demonstrating sound finances, ethical conduct, responsible governance, and lasting stewardship. The Wilderness Land Trust is proud to have earned it through hard work, and to be in the company of so many other wonderful accredited conservation organizations.

The Trust was first accredited in 2008, and renewed in 2013 and 2020. We’re pleased to announce that we’re currently pursuing our third renewal. The renewal process is rigorous, as the accreditation commission conducts an extensive review of our policies and programs.

As part of the renewal process, the Accreditation Commission invites public input from our community of landowners, partners, and supporters. Signed, written comments are relating to how The Wilderness Land Trust complies with national quality standards addressing the ethical and technical operation of the Trust are welcome (Find the full list of standards here).

To learn more about the accreditation program and to submit a comment, visit www.landtrustaccreditation.org, or email your comment to info@landtrustaccreditation.org. Comments may also be mailed to the Land Trust Accreditation Commission, Attn: Public Comments, 36 Phila Street, Suite 2, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866.

Comments on The Wilderness Land Trust’s application will be most useful by April 15, 2025.