The Finger Lakes Land Trust (FLLT) is working to counter the threat of toxic algae (HABs) through conservation and restoration projects that impact water quality, and an increasing emphasis on partnerships with our lake associations and other agencies.
The fight against toxic algae is central to our Water Quality Initiative – a program to save lakes, streams, and drinking water across the region. Our collaborations are protecting pristine shoreline, creating new wetlands, and promoting best practices for managing conserved lands.
We are also educating local agencies and residents through workshops and this web site, including facts for everyone to know, actions we must take together, and toxic algae resources.
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- Conserving lakeshore and forested slopes. Photo: Matt Champlin.
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- Protecting creeks and streams. Photo: Matt Champlin
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- Saving and restoring wetlands. Photo: Marie Read
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- Partnering to protect land and water. Photo: Trevor Andrews
FLLT WORK
Land Protection
By working cooperatively with landowners and local communities, the Finger Lakes Land Trust has protected more than 33,000 acres of the region’s undeveloped lakeshore, rugged gorges, rolling forest, and scenic farmland. The Land Trust focuses on protecting critical habitat for fish and wildlife, conserving lands that are important for water quality, connecting existing conservation lands, and keeping prime farmland in agriculture.
Prioritizing land conservation along lakeshores and streams helps to maintain the natural buffers that provide important water quality benefits. Limiting paved and developed areas along water sources, and preserving natural areas such as fields and forests, slows nutrient runoff into water bodies. As toxic algae blooms could be triggered by high nutrient levels, maintaining and increasing natural riparian and lakeside buffers is an important step to fighting these blooms.
Partnerships for Restoration & Buffering
The Finger Lakes Land Trust works with many partners to protect and restore shoreline and riparian buffers, create wetlands to retain water on the landscape, and promote best practices for water quality on any lands that we own or protect with a conservation easement.
Recently, the Land Trust has partnered with the United State Fish & Wildlife Service to build wetlands on its Owasco Lake Preserve. The Land Trust also partnered with Onondaga County Soil & Water Conservation District to hydroseed all of its roadside ditches on its new Staghorn Cliffs preserve in Spafford.
Communications & Education
The Finger Lakes Land Trust provides programs to educate local governments, landowners, and local residents about conservation and the region’s unique natural resources. Topics of workshop presentations have included landscape conservation, water quality and land use, forest habitat management, farmland protection, conservation easements, and other relevant topics.
The Land Trust has also created these web pages about toxic algae in the Finger Lakes to inform our communities about this intensifying menace to water quality, public health, tourism, and local economies across the region.
ACT NOW
Help the Land Trust protect more land and water forever
Make your gift to the Finger Lakes Land Trust to advance our work protecting sensitive lands and waters, and increasing regional public awareness of the toxic algae threat.
