Land trusts are now protecting more land than gets developed across the western United States each year, according to a new census by the Land Trust Alliance, which represents 1,667 local, state and national land trusts. When this data is compared with the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Agriculture on new land developed in the United States, it now appears that conservation efforts have protected around 2.6 million acres annually nationwide, compared to approximately 2.2 million acres converted each year to developed land. This trend is even more dramatic in the West, where approximately 450,000 acres have been conserved annually in recent years, and 330,000 acres have been developed.