Trustees of (Public) Reservations? U.S. Land Trusts and Neoliberalism as Bricolage

Abstract

Land trusts are increasingly powerful institutions of U.S. environmental governance that deserve more critical scrutiny. As charitable conservation organizations, they enjoy the many advantages of nonprofit status under the claim that they provide broad public benefits. Critics, however, have recently challenged this claim, portraying land trusts as quintessential institutions of neoliberal privatization and hybrid governance. Through a conjunctural analysis of U.S. land trusts across the long twentieth century, and with specific attention to the first, the Trustees of Public Reservations (founded in 1893), this article argues that the treatment of land trusts as neoliberal institutions is both illuminating and limiting. As many critical analyses indicate, U.S. land trusts today tend to privatize governance and facilitate the use of public funds for projects with significant private benefit. I argue, however, that the conceptualization of land trusts as institutions of neoliberal environmental governance also obscures the fact that, across their long history, they are an expression of the contradictions of decentralized land-use planning under capitalism. Most broadly, I suggest that rigorous conjunctural analysis can help geographers refine their conceptualization of neoliberalism and move beyond its limits.

Key Words:

• conjuncture
• conservation easements
• land trusts
• land-use planning
• neoliberalism

Acknowledgments

I started this article as a fellow at the Center for Humanities Research at George Mason University and benefited greatly from the thoughtful and constructive engagement of my colleagues during that time. I first started thinking seriously about how to conceptualize and historicize neoliberalism in Josh Barkan’s graduate seminar class and the many conversations with him since clearly inform this article. Kelly Kay and Todd Stafford have also shaped my thinking on this topic, and Kai Bosworth offered helpful feedback on an early draft of this article at a crucial time. Many thanks also to the reviewers and editorial team.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1 There has been an explosion of geographic literature recently on the racial and class dynamics of U.S. land politics. See, for instance, Freshour and Williams (2022), Hardy and Heynen (2021), McCutcheon (2019), Palmer (2020), and Wright et al. (2020).

2 See GPH Cohasset, LLC v. Trustees of Reservations, 11 N.E.3d 641, 85 Mass. App. Ct. 555 (Mass. App. Ct. 2014).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Levi Van Sant

LEVI VAN SANT is an Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies at George Mason University, Fairfax VA 22030. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include the politics of conservation, land use, and property, especially in the U.S. South.