State of Land Stewardship in Illinois

Roughly 50,000 acres of the 1.5 million total acres of conserved land in Illinois are owned by non-governmental conservation groups, also known as conservation land trusts. Traditionally, conservation land trusts have protected land, often restored it, and later transferred it to government entities for long-term ownership, which effectively transfers the responsibility of land stewardship to those governmental entities. Funded by the Grand Victoria Foundation, a team of nonprofits led by Delta collaborated on a research project to understand and map out the current conditions of conservation organization-based land stewardship in Illinois.