Protecting Land

Yule Kilcher's conservation easement ensures his 613-acre
homestead will not be subdivided. His children are developing
small home sites and continue the agricultural and
ranching activities that Yule began in the 1950s.

People across the country have historically worked to save places important to their communities -- the riverbanks, meadows, forests, and family farms in their back yards. Land trusts were born of these community-minded roots.

Kachemak Heritage Land Trust uses flexible conservation methods to achieve protection goals and meet the specific needs of individual landowners. A property may stay in private ownership and use, or it may be transferred to the land trust. In every case, the way in which a property is protected depends upon the wishes of each landowner and the conservation values of the property.

Connecting the Dots: Kenai Peninsula Landscape Connectivity Initiative

Launched in 2008, KHLT's “Connect the Dots” initiative is designed to maintain landscape connectivity on Alaska’s Kenai Peninsula by permanently preserving land adjacent to existing conservation land. As we consider properties identified in our comprehensive 2-year resource inventory as highly significant, many of them are adjacent to protected land and provide important movement corridors for wildlife, or contain wetlands or river frontage crucial to clean water and fish habitat. These are the properties that we are currently targeting first for protection, as conservation science reveals that landscapes must remain connected to sustain habitat integrity. If habitat is fragmented into “islands”, the ecological functions of an area may be compromised.

Major funding for this project has been provided by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Coastal Program through three generous match grants in 2008, 2009, and 2010.