Nomination Statement for Mountains & Plains Region Candidate Mike Powell

I accepted the nomination for the Terrafirma Members Committee because I am passionate about the land trust community, and I believe the services that Terrafirma provides are vital to its continued growth.  As director of a small land trust in Missouri, I navigate the risks and liabilities land trusts face on a daily basis; as an attorney and experienced nonprofit professional, I am perhaps even more aware of these than most.  I believe that my combination of skills, experience, and passion for the management questions that face land trusts mean that I can help Terrafirma become an even greater asset to our community than it already is.  I also accepted the nomination because I believe that I can advance Missouri’s land trust community by helping our small, few land trusts better access the risk management tools that Terrafirma offers, and that I can offer a perspective that might not be shared by many of my land trust colleagues, who come from states with more well-established groups of conservancies.  Operating in Missouri, a border state with little support for land trusts and conservation easements at the state level, carries its own brand of risks and concerns.  Terrafirma can become more effective by becoming more aware of these issues, and I can offer what I believe are valuable insights.

If I am elected, I would work to represent the interests of land trusts throughout the Mountains and Plains region, which features landscapes, ecosystems, and human communities as diverse and far-ranging as those in any of Terrafirma’s regions.  Even though I bring to the table mostly insights from the perspective of land trusts in Missouri and Kansas, I believe my broader role would be to understand and represent the needs and interests of land trusts generally.  Most importantly, I would hope to assure that Terrafirma is equipped to continue providing vital services to the land trust community in perpetuity (i.e., for as long as our easements last).