As land values soar and governments scramble to cope with growing populations and shrinking coffers, lands that were set aside for nature and open space are being sacrificed.

Who We Are: History

Defense of Place was founded in 1997 in response to the California Academy of Sciences attempts to sell Pepperwood Preserve, a cherished Northern California nature reserve it had promised to protect. Defense of Place publicly questioned the Academy's right to sell land that had been donated to the institution for the expressed purposes of education, science, and preservation. Defense of Place's successful campaign to protect Pepperwood ended when it was taken off the market.

Huey Johnson, a respected national environmental leader, marshaled resources to address what he recognized as a troubling trend: As land values rise and priorities shift, public institutions such as universities, churches, nonprofit organizations, routinely sell off the lands they were entrusted to protect. Governments, too, increasingly resort to selling public lands to balance shrinking budgets. Roads, trains, dams, and development are common incursions on parks, nature preserves, wilderness, wildlife refuges and other lands pledged to remain forever wild.

Inspired by the British National Trust, which protects that country's natural and historic heritage, Johnson founded Defense of Place. It is the only nonprofit organization in the U.S. devoted to assuring that parks, protected open spaces, wildlife refuges, and lands of historic significance, stay that way forever. Shannon Meyer joined Defense of Place as Executive Director in the fall of 2008.

In its short history, Defense of Place has become a leading voice for the inviolability of protected lands, and an indispensable partner to citizen activists seeking to defend protected places.

Defense of Place already has won a number of important victories:

In 2002, Defense of Place helped the citizens of Los Altos Hills, California, challenge the city's plan to sell the Byrne Nature Preserve to pay for a new City Hall. A Defense of Place editorial stirred the town to action. Not only was the threat to the preserve turned back, the town passed an initiative strengthening protection for parks and open spaces within its borders.

Defense of Place also has worked successfully to prevent the City of Millbrae, California from selling public parkland; opposed construction of a new dam that would have flooded portions of California's Henry Coe State Park; is fighting to prevent the California High Speed Rail from damaging over one hundred parks, open spaces, and wildlife refuges; successfully campaigned against a massive communications tower on Angel Island State Park in San Francisco Bay; and strengthened protection for conservation lands in Colorado and Wyoming.

Defense of Place now is expanding its education and outreach to increase awareness of the value of our natural heritage and the need to honor our pact with future generationsÑthat America's public lands will be there forever.

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