Mission:
The Lower Connecticut River Land Trust works to conserve, study, steward, and promote the unique values and scientific significance, natural and working lands, and historic, ecologic, cultural, and scenic resources of the communities of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Region.

In 2018 the Lower Connecticut River Land Trust (LCRLT), a 501(c)(3), was reincarnated and its geographic scope expanded. The LCRLT was born to serve the Connecticut River Gateway Commission (Gateway) and its efforts to conserve the scenic and ecological values of the Connecticut River Gateway Conservation Zone. It now also serves the land and community conservation needs of the 13 land trusts and Gateway Commission, 17 member municipalities of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Council of Governments (RiverCOG), and all other conservation and community organizations that serve the conservation needs of the lower River region who wish to become members.

The Gateway Conservation Zone lays within the RiverCOG region and includes portions of the most southern eight towns of the lower Connecticut River valley that lay along the River from Haddam and East Haddam south to Long Island Sound. It includes scenic viewsheds from the River looking towards the land. The geographic scope of the LCRLT has grown through the efforts of RiverCOG. These efforts include programming and planning work with the land trusts and 17 communities of the region, started in 2009 by one of its preceding organizations, the Connecticut River Estuary Regional Planning Agency. This work established what is known as a regional conservation partnership (RCP). Our RCP includes the informal organization of the Lower Connecticut River and Coastal Region Land Trust Exchange (LTE) whose participants include the 13 land trusts and Gateway, and the region’s federal and state partners.