A cautionary tale from personal experience: My parents retired to a rural area and wanted to ensure that their area would remain a healthy old growth forest. They have been actively involved in a land trust that has successfully created large, continuous corridors throughout the area. One of their contributions was a continuous strip of about 20 acres. Their community has stitched these together to create wonderful cycling/walking paths through the woods, linking up different areas.

At the start of the pandemic, a developer bought up a large (~200 acre) tract neighboring them and the corridor. They immediately clearcut the whole thing, and are building hundreds of tract houses, cheek by jowl, and have consequently forced the local government to build additional roads. Guess the big selling point they use in their website and listings? 'Neighbors a wilderness trust with extensive woodland paths.'

Knowing all of this, I'm not sure whether I'd still go through with the land trust purchases or not. They couldn't have afforded the 200 acre parcel, and who knows if the developer would have bought the other 50 acres. All I can say is that it is dispiriting to see people doing the right thing and having a net increase in clearcutting at their doorstep.