| Working with Texas farm, ranch and conservation organizations, American Farmland Trust has launched a campaign to conserve our most productive and important ranch and farm lands, and to preserve Texas' unique heritage. With the help of Representative Charlie Geren and Senator Mike Jackson, legislation has been filed that will establish a statewide purchase of development rights program, which 24 other states already have. Under this program, landowners voluntarily sell conservation easements, or the rights to develop the land - land which then stays in open space for the benefit of water, wildlife, native habitat and agriculture!
Active in Texas since 1999, American Farmland Trust (AFT) is the only national nonprofit organization dedicated exclusively to stopping the loss of productive farm- and ranchland. AFT provided technical assistance to Governor Bush's Task Force on Conservation, which recommended the creation of a statewide PDR program as an incentive for private conservation and to stop the increasing fragmentation of rural lands. Later, AFT worked with Texas A&M to produce the Rural Land Fragmentation Project, which provided data supporting the need for PDR. |
