Vermont Public Radio: land conservation
Two local conservation groups worked with the Upper Valley Land Trust to buy more than 300 undeveloped acres of forest on the southern slope of Mount Ascutney.
The last days of December have seen the conservation of thousands of acres of land in Vermont and neighboring New Hampshire towns.
States are facing tough decisions about where to invest their shrinking budgets. In most cases protecting open space is not at the top of the list. But the downturn in the economy has also meant, in some places, a drop in land values, and that's creating new opportunities to preserve land and curb development.