Valley Gives Day

Hilltown Land Trust (HLT) serves 13 Massachusetts hilltowns: Ashfield, Chester, Chesterfield, Conway, Cummington, Goshen, Huntington, Middlefield, Plainfield, Westhampton, Williamsburg, Windsor and Worthington. Our mission is to maintain the area’s working farms and forest as a vital part of Hilltown life, and to protect the area’s rich ecological resources, species diversity, native habitats, water quality, and natural, scenic, rural and historic landscapes.

Since our founding in 1986 as an all-volunteer land trust, Hilltown Land Trust (HLT) has protected over 3,700 acres of farmland, forest, streams and wetlands. This year we complete four new land protection projects, permanently protecting an additional 290 acres of land in four towns. HLT holds 30 Conservation Restrictions, permanently protected properties that are owned by private landowners and regularly monitored by HLT. In addition, HLT owns two properties in Williamsburg on which we maintain hiking trails, two Worthington wetland areas on which we lead occasional outings, and 470 acres on the Huntington-Westhampton border on which we maintain extensive public hiking trails, practice limited forest management and recently added 90 acres to be left alone for the benefit of wildlife.

HLT offers some of the lowest cost land protection and management in the regionthanks to dedicated and well-trained volunteers, landowners who have generously donated their land for conservation, and our affiliation with The Trustees of Reservations.

In 2010, HLT and The Trustees of Reservations, one of America’s oldest land conservation organizations, launched a new partnership that combines the efforts and resources of these two non-profit land conservation organizations in thirteen rural towns. Hilltown Land Trust and The Trustees continue to function as independent entities, but have pooled our resources in order to hire staff and increase the pace of land conservation in the Hilltowns.

Hilltown Land Trust leads monthly hikes on properties we have protected as well as informational events and activities throughout the region – please join us!

Your contribution to Hilltown Land Trust will help protect working farms and forests, streams, wildlife habitat and scenic vista in the hilltowns.

Donate to HILLTOWN LAND TRUST INC at Razoo