The Lake Placid Land Conservancy (LPLC) has been awarded a $25,000 New York State Conservation Partnership Program  grant to expand its outreach efforts across the Lake Placid region, including the towns of North Elba, Keene, Jay, Wilmington, Saranac Lake and St. Armand.

Once developed, the program is expected to offer interested, qualified landowners in the region the opportunity to develop conservation management plans for their properties and implement any one of a number of citizen science tools on their properties to monitor wildlife, invasive species, plant and animal phenology or climate change.

As part of the program’s development, LPLC will be conducting community conservation workshops this summer in communities throughout the Lake Placid region to understand what conservation, cultural and economic resources are important to specific communities in the region and why.

LPLC is one of 55 non for profit land trusts in the state of New York that received grant funding through the Conservation Partnership Program. A total of $1.8 million was awarded to land trusts throughout New York State in 2016; nine grant awards totaling $194,350 were awarded to land trusts in the North Country.

The NYSCPP grants are funded through New York’s Environmental Protection Fund.

Photo: A 144-acre property in Jay with a view of the Sentinel Range being conserved with a conservation easement by the Lake Placid land Conservancy.