About Keeping The Promise: Core Skills for Effective Land Stewardship Webinar Series

Every conservation easement and fee property represents a lasting promise to protect the land’s conservation values forever. Keeping the Promise: Core Skills for Effective Land Stewardship is an essential webinar series from CLCC and the Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy designed to equip land trusts with the practical skills, tools, and insights needed to uphold that commitment with confidence.

This six-part series focuses on the foundational elements of stewardship: conducting meaningful annual monitoring, responding effectively to encroachments, collaborating with natural resource professionals, integrating remote sensing tools into stewardship workflows, and using national Terrafirma claim trends to proactively manage risk.

Grounded in Land Trust Alliance Standards & Practices and informed by real scenarios from the field, each session will help land trust staff and volunteers strengthen their stewardship programs, improve documentation and preparedness, and build long-term resilience into their conservation work.

Series Schedule

Each webinar takes place on Tuesdays, beginning April 21, from 12:00 PM – 1:30 PM.

April 21: Session #1: Eyes on the Land: Annual Monitoring Made Meaningful

April 28: Session #2: A New Lens on Stewardship: Using Remote Sensing for Annual Monitoring

May 5: Session #3: Drawing the Line: Preventing and Addressing Encroachments

May 12: Session #4: When Prevention Isn’t Enough: Legal and Civil Pathways for Encroachment Resolution 

May 19: Session #5: Proactive Protection: Lessons from Terrafirma Trends

May 26: Session #6: Forests and Foresters: Planning for Long-Term Woodland Health

Session #4: When Prevention Isn’t Enough: Legal and Civil Pathways for Encroachment Resolution

Focus: Legal follow-up, enforcement actions, settlement options

When initial outreach and corrective steps fail to resolve an encroachment, land trusts must be prepared to take further action. This session explores the legal tools available to enforce conservation easements and address significant or persistent violations. Presenters will outline how to document an enforceable case, work with counsel, evaluate options ranging from negotiated settlements to litigation, and understand the implications of each approach. Using real scenarios, this session will help land trusts feel confident navigating higher-stakes enforcement while upholding mission, integrity, and community trust.

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Note: Register once and you will be invited to participate in any or all of the six workshops that comprise the Keeping the Promise series.