The Land Trust was appointed as a Responsible Body by Defra in September 2024. The Land Trust has over 20 years’ experience in managing sustainable open spaces and green infrastructure in perpetuity and provide landowners with this specialist knowledge to ensure lasting conservation for the benefit of communities and the natural environment.
Responsible Body status means we can enter into legal agreements with landowners and organisations called ‘conservation covenants’, designed to establish the long-term protection of land for the benefit of nature. Conservation covenants offer a long-term, flexible way to achieve environmental outcomes and are tied to the land, meaning they pass to any future landowners.
Our primary role as a Responsible Body is to ensure the integrity of off-site Biodiversity Net Gain (BNG) projects, working with landowners to ensure that their legal obligations and biodiversity targets are met.
We are also willing to consider covenants for a wider variety of conservation and environmental goals, including:
If you would like to arrange a meeting to discuss live Conservation Covenant opportunities, please fill in this questionnaire or email us on responsiblebody@thelandtrust.org.uk and we will aim to respond to you within 5 working days of the questionnaire being completed.