Land protection

The Mad River Valley is famous for its downhill skiing, hiking, mountain biking, and cross-country skiing. That popularity comes with a cost – land development. Protecting the Green Mountains and special places like the Mad River Valley has been one of The Trust for Public Land’s priorities for more decades. We now have the opportunity to conserve 619 acres of inholdings in the Green Mountain National Forest which are vulnerable to fragmentation and development because of their location adjacent to Sugarbush Resort. 

For 50 years, scientists believed Fender’s blue buttery were extinct. But in 1989, these brilliantly blue butteries were rediscovered in the Willamette Valley. Today, the Willamette Valley is the only place in the world you can find Fender’s blue butterfly.

Longleaf pine forests once dominated the southern United States forest habitat stretching from Texas to Florida to Virginia. Today they occupy only about 5% of its historical range. Maintained by regular fire, they are one of the most threatened and ecologically diverse ecosystems in the world, with 900 species found nowhere else on Earth and 30 federally threatened/endangered species.

Located where three ecological regions – the Sierra Nevada, Great Basin and Mojave – come together, is the 3,806-acre Hanning Flat property, a property critical for connectivity between the desert and the Sierra Nevada. This rural property was identified for preservation due to its adjacency to four publicly-accessible state and federal conservation preserves, its significant wildlife corridors essential for climate change resiliency, and as a potential burrowing owl re-establishment site due to the gradual sloping grasslands found at the lower elevations.