Angela Twitchell is senior director of community and government relations at Maine Coast Heritage Trust. Matt Markot is executive director of Loon Echo Land Trust and incoming chair of the Maine Land Trust Network.

Later this month in Augusta, hundreds of conservation leaders from across Maine will gather for the Maine Land Conservation Conference, the largest annual meeting of its kind in the state. The event is an opportunity for organizations to share tools, strengthen partnerships and explore emerging challenges. It also highlights one of Maine’s greatest conservation strengths: a network of more than 80 land trusts working in collaboration to benefit lands, waters, people and wildlife.

This network represents the highest number of land trusts per capita of any state in the country. It not only reflects Maine’s strong conservation ethic, but also its distinctly local approach to stewardship.

Traditional conservation work — acquiring land and stewarding it permanently — remains essential. Protecting forests, farms, wetlands, shorelines and wildlife habitat safeguards the ecological systems and working landscapes that Mainers depend on. But as communities face mounting pressures from climate change, housing shortages and changing access to natural resources, land trusts and other conservation organizations are evolving their approaches to meet a broader set of needs.

Increasingly, that means designing projects with community priorities at the center. It means creating ADA-accessible trails so more people can experience the outdoors. It means protecting working waterfront access for clammers and fishermen. It means supporting community gardens, outdoor classrooms and food production and donation programs. And sometimes, it means helping address one of Maine’s most urgent challenges: housing.

A recent partnership in Rockport offers a compelling example. Maine Coast Heritage Trust and Midcoast Regional Housing Trust joined forces around Erickson Fields Preserve to conserve productive farmland and create year-round workforce housing. Part of a historic homestead property will provide long-term housing for local workers, while the remaining land expands opportunities for agricultural education, community gardens, produce for food pantries as well as a site to test regenerative agriculture techniques.

In Casco, Loon Echo Land Trust helped fund an “open space plan” — a resource to guide future development while safeguarding the town’s natural resources and maintaining public access to the outdoors. The planning tool responds to a community need by helping to identify where housing and other development make the most sense (such as areas where road and sewer infrastructure is already in place), while protecting forests, water quality, recreation areas and working lands.

These locally grounded solutions are strengthened by statewide collaboration. Through the Maine Land Trust Network, land trusts share funding strategies and best practices, while exchanging mentorship and training opportunities. Small local organizations and larger regional groups learn from one another while staying rooted in the needs of their own communities. That exchange strengthens local innovation across Maine.

In Damariscotta, Coastal Rivers Conservation Trust has partnered with Twin Villages Foodbank Farm to help grow thousands of pounds of food annually for local food pantries and other programs that serve lower-income communities. Brunswick-Topsham Land Trust supports community agriculture through gardens, farmers markets and donations to the Mid Coast Hunger Prevention Program, while Cathance River Education Alliance connects local students with outdoor learning.

Across western Maine, regional partnerships like Sebago Clean Waters bring multiple organizations together to protect drinking water, conserve forests and strengthen climate resilience. In Bridgton, Loon Echo Land Trust works alongside community partners to provide free firewood to those in need throughout Maine’s Lake Region, helping to address heating insecurity.

Together, these examples point to an important evolution. Land trusts are shifting from organizations that serve the environment to organizations that serve both the environment and people — recognizing that there are many interconnections between them.

That community-centered focus is visible in this year’s conference themes: partnerships between land trusts and housing trusts, co-stewardship of conservation lands with Wabanaki communities, environmental education, regional collaborations, conserving areas of statewide ecological significance and working through the lens of community, equity, inclusion and justice.

These themes are as diverse as they are because the challenges ahead are increasingly complex. Climate change is reshaping coastlines, forests and farmland. Housing shortages are straining local economies. Access to working lands and waters is affecting livelihoods, food systems and community identity.

No single land trust, or any single organization, can solve these issues alone. But Maine’s conservation community offers a hopeful model.

Land trusts bring hyper-local knowledge of community priorities, relationships and landscapes. Through the statewide network, they also gain broader partnerships, expanded resources and collective problem-solving capacity. That combination allows local leadership to drive solutions while benefiting from statewide support. The result is conservation done with, by and for communities.

At a time when many people feel disempowered about decisions affecting their future, community-led stewardship and taking care of the land offer hope and an opportunity to help people feel more connected — to nature, to one another and to their future.

“Nature Connects” is a monthly column showcasing conservation stories from people and organizations across Maine. To learn more or suggest story ideas, email [email protected].