Land Trust of Virginia

Goal: $2,500.00

Specific Need

Two Women, Two Stories from The Downstream Project on Vimeo. Learn about the Baldwin family and another LTV landowner, Dot Shetterly. 

Land Trust of Virginia would love to highlight and ask for your contribution to our Malcolm Baldwin Farmers Fund.  Since the founding of the Malcolm Baldwin Farmers Fund, 15 special properties have been conserved with the use of the fund, protecting over 3,300 acres in 10 Virginia counties. 

Created in 2019, the fund is named for Malcolm Forbes Baldwin, LTV’s former board member and friend, in honor of Malcolm’s lifetime of service to conservation and his support for family farms in his community.  Malcolm worked tirelessly to support other farmers and he encouraged many in the local farming community to permanently conserve their land as he had. The Fund is utilized to help underwrite the fees for conservation easement donations on properties that have historically been in agricultural use.

Lloyd and Linda Mundie run a 5^th generation farming operation, and with the assistance of the Baldwin Fund, they have now ensured future family members will have the opportunity to continue this legacy. When asked about the easement donation, Lloyd stated,

“With the way farming and land prices are going, we are trying to plan for the future. This is one way we can give my grandchildren a good start by locking this land in so it will never be used for anything but farming. They are young now, but we hope some of them will stay and farm. I am so blessed to wake up every morning and go to work with my three sons.”

Our goal is to continue to build this Fund so we can help farmers conserve their properties; working farmers who are making the important decision, including financial implications, to permanently protect their farmland from development. With your help, we can do just that! Right now, with your support of this fund, you're helping make conservation of Virginia farmland a reality! 

Mission

Land Trust of Virginia (LTV) partners with private landowners who wish to voluntarily protect and preserve their working farmland or natural lands with significant historic, scenic, and ecological value for the benefit of our community using conservation easements.

A conservation easement is a private legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust, such as LTV, that protects land and its conservation values permanently. Together the landowner and the land trust craft the legal easement document so that it protects the significant historic, natural and cultural attributes of the land. The landowner still owns their property, but the conservation easement is a permanent legal document that gets recorded with the property’s deed and travels with the property even when the property changes ownership.

Conservation easements are a strategy for protection and provide the opportunity for improvement of water quality, preservation of cultural and historic sites, protection of our plant and animal communities, sustaining working landscapes and natural areas, and enhancing our quality of life. 

Profile

As the Commonwealth's leading private land trust, Land Trust of Virginia currently holds 261 conservation easements that protects nearly 34,000 acres in 34 counties.