Trust for Public Land

Description

Trust for Public Land is a United States nonprofit organization that works on land conservation and park creation.

It helps communities create parks and protect public land, treating access to nature as a matter of health, equity and justice. It has completed thousands of park-creation and land-conservation projects, protected millions of acres, and helped pass hundreds of ballot measures that created public funding for parks and open space. As an accredited land trust it usually does not keep long-term ownership of conservation land; instead it works with public agencies, community groups and partner organizations, and ownership generally passes to public bodies or partners.

Its activities include urban park and open space initiatives, protection of national, state and local parks, and policy and ballot campaigns for park funding at local, state and federal level. It runs the 10-Minute Walk campaign with the National Recreation and Park Association and the Urban Land Institute, encouraging mayors to pledge to expand park access within walking distance. It also conducts research and publishes data on parks, open space, conservation finance and urban climate adaptation.

The organization was founded in San Francisco in 1972 by Huey Johnson and a group of lawyers and conservation advocates. It is headquartered in San Francisco and operates through field offices across the United States, including a federal affairs presence in Washington, D.C.