About Us
We are your local champions for nature
CILTI preserves the best of Central Indiana’s natural areas, protecting plants and animals, so Hoosiers can experience the wonder of the state’s natural heritage.
Protecting Nature
To guide our work, we have developed a strategic conservation plan that blends landscape, plant community, and species-based methodologies. Our approach is three-tiered, as we strive to:
- protect land of local or community significance
- assist partners with their priority lands
- preserve core conservation areas (our main focus)
How We Work
The Central Indiana Land Trust has protected more than 6,500 acres of Indiana’s natural heritage since 1990. This protection usually takes one of three forms:
Conservation Targets
In preserving core conservation areas, our goal is to protect land representing the best examples of Central Indiana’s ecological character. Using the best available science, we have assessed the central third of Indiana, prioritizing protection of the following conservation targets.
Caring For Nature
The Central Indiana Land Trust promises to actively steward its lands – forever. Our professional stewardship staff form the core of our on-the-ground work as we vigilantly care for these places in perpetuity.
This team executes each preserve’s management plan based on science and the best interests of the land and wildlife that call it home.
We monitor for rare and endangered species, as well as invasive and exotic ones, as we work to restore and preserve the best of Central Indiana.
We offer opportunities to work side-by-side with our dedicated stewardship team during volunteer work days and special events. Our volunteers – Wednesday Warriors, corporate volunteers, university groups, families, and more – go behind the scenes with land conservation activities in natural areas.
Mitigating Climate Change
We take our role in mitigating climate change seriously. We work locally, with an eye on the bigger global impact of our actions.
For example, we protect the forests that are so key to a livable future. In places like Burr Oak Bend, Meltzer Woods, and Glacier’s End, we are planting trees and supporting the overall forests’ resilience. Not only do forests provide important habitat, filter water, and clean the air, they also offer one of the best ways to mitigate the effects of climate change.
Trees take more and more carbon out of the atmosphere every year as they grow. They also send carbon into the soil through their leaf litter and dead roots.
Tree Plantings
Each tree we plant and protect will store carbon over time, exponentially increasing the carbon storage with each passing year. Every acre of protected forest will magnify this effect. Here at CILTI, our aim is to buffer protected woodlands by at least a square mile of additional forest. Over the coming years we will plant a million trees on protected land.
Our Story
Central Indiana Land Trust is dedicated to caring for the land, forever. With the help of people like you, we are connecting hundreds of acres of fragmented land while protecting the homes of countless species. Together, we can protect even more.
- Proud supporting member of Indiana Land Protection Alliance (ILPA). ILPA is a vibrant nonpartisan network of land trusts, conservation partners and community members. Our alliance champions land and water protection for all of Indiana.
- Nationally accredited by the Land Trust Alliance Commission, an independent program of the Land Trust Alliance, which is a resource center for conservation organizations across the country.
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