Err, so when I signed up for Blog Action Day a few weeks ago, I didn't realize that on that particular day I would be traveling all day. So, a day late is better than never, right?

Oddly enough, though, the reason I was traveling has everything to do with what I was planning on blogging about! 

I was traveling because I was in Portland attending a conference to do with my job. I work for a land trust.

Many people don't know what a land trust is, so bare with me for a bit of a jargony explanation. A land trust is a type of non-profit organization that protects land either by owning it outright either through purchase or donation, or by holding conservation easements. A conservation easement is a legal encumbrance voluntarily placed upon the title of the property that basically restricts development of that property forever. The land trust to which the conservation easement is sold or donated has the legal right and obligation to enforce the terms of the easement.

Blah biddy blah, to make a long story short, land trusts permanently protect land. Yipee!

Now at last to the point: while at the land trust conference in Portland, I attended a workshop on how land protection has to be a major part of our efforts to curb climate change. Protecting land helps in at least four ways:

• Carbon Sequestration - vast amounts of carbon are absorbed from the air and stored in trees, plants, wetlands, even soil! Protecting important pieces of property from being developed preserves this necessary function.
   
• Preservation of Habitat and Migration Corridors - many species are having a heck of a time surviving as it is. By preserving contiguous undeveloped land, we not only ensure a place for wildlife to live and thrive now, but also provide pathways for species to travel and have new homes when changes in climate may force them to migrate.
   
• Groundwater Protection - unless you live by a river, your drinking water comes from aquifers deep under the ground. In order to continue replacing that source of drinking water, land has to remain unpaved and unbuilt in order to absorb rainwater and draw it down into the aquifers. Instead, when land is paved and built on, rainwater runoff rushes quickly into streams and rivers without any time to be absorbed into the ground. Additionally this increases erosion, pollution from oil, fertilizers and pesticides found on the ground. If climate change makes drinking water an increasingly valuable resource, anything we can do to protect drinking water sources will be important.
   
• Natural Disaster Buffering - floodplains, riparian corridors (aka green strips of land along rivers), coastal wetlands and estuaries are not only hugely valuable lands in terms of beauty and biodiversity, they also provide protection from the effects of floods and storms. Giving rising waters from rivers and oceans caused by storms room to dissipate and be absorbed over undeveloped land lessens their devastation on human and natural communities.

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