Conservation Needs and Opportunities

Some opportunities need to be grasped, or they will be lost forever. Protection of green space in and surrounding our communities is such an opportunity.

Acre-by-acre, the people of Pennsylvania are losing the green spaces and natural places that define our townships, boroughs and cities. We are losing the local pockets of green where children and adults can play, exercise or just plain relax. We are losing the open lands that prevent flooding and that recharge and protect our drinking water supplies. We are losing the productive farms and forestland essential to vibrant agricultural and forest product economies. We are losing the open spaces that give our communities their distinctive appeal and make them healthy, prosperous and secure. 

Development consumes hundreds of acres of Pennsylvania open space every day – an area the size of Delaware County each year. Even if land consumption slows to what it was in the 1990s, the landscape of Pennsylvania will dramatically change in the next half century. By 2060, Pennsylvania will be more developed than present-day New Jersey, the nation’s most densely populated state.

and Conservation Fund helps ensure our most special places are protected for our enjoyment today and far into the future. The Keystone Fund helps ensure that our children’s children and their descendants will grow up enjoying the same open lands that we so often take for granted. In the latest round, 19 conservation acquisition projects, totaling $12.1M, went unfunded.