Our Mission Statement
Hilltown Land Trust protects land and promotes ecological diversity and health, respectful land stewardship, historic character, and natural beauty in our hilltowns.
Our Values
Community
The benefits of conserving land stretch beyond just our geographic service area. Our HLT community includes partners, donors, visitors, volunteers, and supporters from all over and from all walks of life. By welcoming and embracing diverse opinions and identities, our Hilltown Land Trust community and the land we conserve, and steward will have greater impact both within our service area and beyond.
Sustainability
We believe that the health of the land, the fauna and flora, our air and water, and ultimately, people require attention and care over the long term. Our mission and resultant actions must be anchored in the truths of the past, the realities of today, and be focused on future outcomes.
Collaboration
We seek to build lasting partnerships through listening and sustained engagement and seek to pool our resources with others to advance shared goals. By leveraging our collective strengths and expertise, we will accomplish more than on our own.
Accountability
We understand that honesty and transparency are essential to earning the trust of our donors, our members, our volunteers, our partners, and the communities we seek to serve. Additionally, as a land conservation organization, we hold ourselves accountable to telling a more complete history of the land we conserve.
Belonging
All people benefit from the preservation of the natural world and have a right to be heard and to be included in issues that affect their lives and those of future generations. We seek to reduce historical and present-day barriers to accessing our natural world.
What Does Hilltown Land Trust Do?
Hilltown Land Trust works to conserve ecologically important wildlands, economically and culturally important working lands, and the scenic beauty and rural character of the Hilltowns. Our service area includes 13 rural towns: Ashfield, Chester, Chesterfield, Conway, Cummington, Goshen, Huntington, Middlefield, Plainfield, Westhampton, Williamsburg, Windsor, and Worthington. Since our founding in 1986, we have protected and continue to steward over 5,000 acres of land.
A number of HLT properties offer public access and hiking trails. You can learn more by visiting our Protected Lands page.
Our project committee and Executive Director work with landowners to permanently protect ecologically valuable land in the Hilltowns. If you think you may be interested in working with HLT to protect your property, please contact our Executive Director, Sally Loomis.
To learn more about our work and vision, read our Seven-Year Strategic Plan: 2016-2023.
Visualize the region we serve with Hilltown Land Trust’s service area map.