Employers

Land acquisition professionals are employed by nonprofit land trusts. These range from large national trusts such as The Nature Conservancy to smaller state-level or local trusts. The Land Trust Alliance reports that there were 1,281 land trusts nationwide in 2024, 950 of which were members of the alliance.

Starting Out

Volunteering for or doing an internship with a land trust is an excellent way to enter the field. Large statewide organizations are probably the best bets for internships, as are the national organizations. One option for entering this field is to help start a land trust in your area yourself.

Advancement will depend on the size of the land trust organization. A project manager with the Trust for Public Land might move up into an administrative position, for example, or get more complicated cases. Other options might be to move over to a federal agency that manages federal lands, although these jobs are scarce right now, or into the for-profit sector, such as with a consulting firm or a private company that manages large parcels of land, like a timber company.

Visit the following Web sites for job listings:

• https://landtrustalliance.org/job-board
• https://www.tpl.org/careers
• https://www.nwf.org/About-Us/Careers

For more information on this field, read or listen to:

• People. Nature. Big Ideas. (podcast): https://www.tpl.org/podcast
• Gaining Ground: https://landtrustalliance.org/land-trusts/gaining-ground
• "The Dirt" (blog): https://landtrustalliance.org/blog
• Nature Conservancy Magazine: https://www.nature.org/en-us/magazine/?vu=r.v_magazine

Attend Rally: The National Land Conservation Conference (https://alliancerally.org) to network and participate in continuing education opportunities.

Participate in volunteer opportunities with the Student Conservation Association, The Nature Conservancy, and other land acquisition and preservation organizations.