When your town is a largely built-out community, the last vestiges of open land take on new meaning. The attempt to determine their future is fraught with tugs on either end of the rope—to build or not, at existing zoning or not, for greater good or not, so as to leave a legacy or not. Control is in the hands of the owner and in the will of the local legislators and review boards. Adding to the mix are the many municipalities across the country that are working diligently to conserve the best remnants through public purchase programs.

As an example, the Town of Huntington, Long Island is assembling a quilt of varying land patches of green to be sewn together by trails, both off and on road. The pieces of nature and assorted other sites are the prime objectives. The local mantra of a national land preservation organization once was, “Saving the last of the least and the best of the rest.” Working for my hometown, the charge is simpler, “What means the most?” With a hungry trend of larger homes and their insatiable tentacles of spreading amenities, subdivisions have swallowed up farms, fields, woods, wetlands, and engulfing views once taken for granted. When a community chooses to tax itself to protect open space, the charge is clear. While the pressure to develop mounts, an appointed volunteer committee reaches out to landowners and asks for an opportunity to appraise their land in the hope of securing it. It is all based on good faith and only proceeds where there is a potentially willing seller. The program is driven mainly by nominations from those that live and work in the community.

Given a blank slate, anyone you ask anywhere could come up with their own priority list for preservation. A local program provides flexibility to balance interests. The acquisitions become unique in their purpose and site condition. What people cherish most about the lands they wish to see purchased is as variable as the acres and their potential. Together they embody community values. In Huntington, lands preserved over the past eight years include farms, sites held by families for generations, ex-government properties, and lands slated for development.

The sites are as notorious as they are cherished, to cite a few: the former home of jazz-legend John Coltrane to be preserved for musical history; a small dairy farm with the last two cows in town provides a destination for children of all ages to mingle and touch farm animals; an abandoned rail line that serves as a community trail; a maritime reserve for endangered shorebirds; an historic homestead providing a doorway to 100 woodland acres and which, through its renovation, evolves into an environmental education center; a diminutive gateway park to anchor and herald downtown revitalization efforts; a former federal Veteran’s Administration site to be reborn as a regional sports complex; a turn-of-the-century farm estate to host a wildlife rehabilitation center with nature programming. Rachel Carson once wrote, “To truly appreciate land, you must look upon it as if you are seeing it for the first time or as if you knew you’d never see it again.” The cost of land in suburban Long Island, New York is high and the competition for resources can be fierce, but the results are at once obvious yet, intangible.

Standing as witness to that first time a child gasps at a hawk resting in a low tree limb, or a group stumbles on a panoramic water view having hiked the twists and turns of mossy paths through dense mountain laurel, or a team engages in fast play on the opening of a new ball field is, without a doubt, simply priceless. A united municipal board that supports a community-based land conservation program is what makes it all possible. It is the true will of government, using public resources to recycle open, or not so open, land into parkland. In this case, a good deed is one in which a municipality can be the grantee.

Margo Myles is an environmentalist and Coordinator of Open Space Conservation for the Town of Huntington on Long Island in NY.