The Save the Sandhills Campaign
The Opportunity to Save the Sandhills
The Land Trust of Santa Cruz County has identified over 700 acres of the Sandhills for potential protection. This fall we are launching Phase 1 of a campaign to Save the Sandhills by acquiring the largest property on this list – a 189 acre property where developers are planning 14 luxury homes. With your help today, we can protect this property by the end of 2007.
See aerial photo of land we are protecting in phase 1 of our campaign.
The Land Trust is seeking to raise $1.2 million in community support – which will be multiplied four times by grants from private foundations and public agencies. We have been encouraged to apply for these grants – and to demonstrate that the people of Santa Cruz County are willing to do their part to protect this rare biological treasure in our backyard.
Robert Stephens has stepped forward to chair the Save the Sandhills Campaign – and, along with his wife, Julie Packard, to make a generous lead donation. You can track our progress in meeting this goal on our website. With your support we can complete the task this year.
Generations from Now
The protection of the highest priority lands at the center of the Sandhills is the first phase of a campaign to Save the Sandhills – to protect the rare species found nowhere else on earth, to provide our county with clean safe water, and to make this place of biological and geological wonder available for future generations. Future phases will include the acquisition of additional land, the careful management of protected land to reduce destructive recreational use, and the development of a public access program that emphasizes the use of this land for broad educational purposes.
Generations from now this rare place and the life it supports could be dotted with houses and carved up by roads. Or it could be a shining example of the way a caring and sensitive community protects and learns from the rarest of its blessings.
Our County’s Future
The Sandhills aren’t the only special place in our county that we want to protect for future generations – and saving the Sandhills will help protect theses other places too.
In the past two years the Land Trust has worked hard to be the land trust our county needs to protect the lands we love.
- We have launched a major program to protect the rare coastal farmland of the Pajaro Valley – and received, for the first time, millions of dollars in state and federal funds to accomplish this goal.
- We have begun work on more than 20 land protection transactions. In the next few months we will announce the completion of several of these transactions. In the coming year more of them will be completed.
- We have begun the development of a strategic conservation plan that will guide land protection in our county for generations to come.
The Save the Sandhills campaign will mark another giant step forward for the Land Trust and for land conservation in our county. Our success in saving the Sandhills will help build the confidence of major funders in the Land Trust and in our community’s commitment to protecting the lands that make it special.
Santa Cruz County is special and we’re working to keep it that way. Join us.
The Land Trust is hosting two slide show presentations about the Sandhills
this fall and will host walks for supporters in the spring. Find out more…
Email this page to a friend
