Our Commitment to Stewardship
Once a conservation deal is complete, our work does not stop. Like all land trusts, the primary mission and purpose of the Lake Champlain Land Trust is to protect land “in perpetuity,” which means we have a permanent duty to protect and care for our natural areas. Our stewardship commitment includes three main components.
Legal Stewardship. As an accredited land trust, we must make routine visits to our conserved lands to insure that the legal requirements of the conservation easement are being upheld.
Day-to-Day Stewardship. Together with our volunteers and landowners, we work to make sure that our conserved lands are managed in a way that protects their natural, scenic, and recreational values. Our staff often works with landowners and community partners to design and implement day-to-day management plans and perform routine activities like clearing trails of blowdown, monitoring natural area use, and serving as an expert resource for land managers.
Ecological Stewardship. Once a property is protected, we work with the landowner to insure that its ecological values are maintained or improved. If a property is conserved in part because it contains a rare natural community or valuable wildlife habitat, we don’t want invasive plants gaining a foothold and disrupting the habitat we all worked so hard to protect.
Restoring Our Conserved Lands
The Lake Champlain Land Trust works to restore the ecological integrity of certain conserved lands. By restoring our lands we are improving wildlife habitat, protecting rare plants, and safeguarding clean water. When visiting our natural areas, you may see our staff and volunteers working to identify and control invasive species, planting and stewarding water quality-improving trees, or improving trails to prevent erosion. For more information about our restoration program or to volunteer, contact us at or 802-862-4150.
How You Can Help
Volunteers are the keystone to stewardship. With the help of our dedicated volunteers, we can take on important restoration projects including tree plantings, invasive species removal, and trail building projects.
We are currently in the stewardship phase of a multi-year, 1,600+ tree restoration project at the Upper La Platte River Natural Area. We are actively restoring flood-absorbing floodplain forests that formerly helped trap sediments and phosphorous just before the La Platte River flowed into Lake Champlain’s Shelburne Bay. Read the full story about this major restoration project.
Visit our volunteer page to learn more about how you can help the Lake Champlain Land Trust steward our natural areas.
