By donating a conservation easement on their land to a land trust, the Massions joined a growing national and local movement in which property owners are taking land conservation into their own hands. Instead of relying completely on the work of government bodies or large conservation nonprofits, land trusts like the Fox Valley Land Foundation in Kane County and the Land Conservancy of McHenry County offer private residents a chance to make a substantial difference on the local conservation scene. A conservation easement, like the one the Massions donated, is a permanent restriction on the land. It guarantees the land will not be developed for "forever and a day," said Lisa Haderlein, executive director of Land Conservancy of McHenry County. The Massions still own the land and can sell it at will. But the restrictions go with the sale. However, land trusts have some concrete perks for the couple - tax breaks.

About 1,200 grassroots land trusts exist in the United States today, a niche effort to protect what are typically smaller, privately owned properties. Some estimate that the private land trust movement is the fastest growing part of the conservation community. In Illinois, 28 land trusts protect and preserve more than 45,600 acres, according to information from the national Land Trust Alliance. Nationally, 6.2 million acres of open space were protected by land trusts in 2000, a 226 percent increase from the 1.9 million acres protected by land trusts in 1990. In the Fox River valley of Kane and McHenry counties, donating a conservation easement to a land trust means preserving prairies, tree stands and wildflower-filled ravines.

"We're preserving a sense of place," said Marianne Nelson, executive director of the Fox Valley Land Foundation. "When everything gets developed with big boxes or cookie-cutter houses, can you tell if you are in Illinois or California?" The land trust conservation programs work similarly to Kane County's Farmland Protection Program. In the farmland program, the county gives the farmer a one-time development rights payment. The deal ensures the farmland will remain a farm forever, regardless of who eventually owns it. Similarly, the local land trusts will hold conversation easements for private property owners with high-quality pieces of land in Kane or McHenry counties. The land may switch owners, but the conservation easement remains with the trust, immutable.

Unlike the 4,000 acres of local land conserved through the Kane County Forest Preserve District's 1998 open space referendum, the trust land is not typically available for public use. By donating the conservation easement, there are now restrictions on what they can do with their property, Suzanne Massion said. Because the Massions' conservation easement circles their home, they can't build an addition. They also couldn't dramatically re-landscape their property. In exchange for these restrictions, the couple and other participants received the expertise of a group of land foundation volunteers, who include botanists and landscape experts. With the foundation, the Massions created a management plan that helps them cultivate and create a natural environment, like tearing out invasive, non-native plants. A foundation volunteer tours the property annually to update the management plan.

But perhaps even more of an incentive are the two separate tax breaks - a one-time income tax break and an annual property tax deduction - that donors to land trusts often receive. The Fox Valley Land Foundation is hoping to partner not only with individual property owners like the Massions but also with local municipalities to raise awareness of conservation and the role of land trusts in it. And these conversations need to be happening now, Nelson said, "because there is hardly a piece of land in Kane County left that a developer hasn't looked at or got an option on. Ten years from now it will be very hard to find something in Kane County."

The Massions' landscaping is wild compared to their suburban neighbors, full of the prairie grasses and wildflowers that once filled all of Kane and McHenry counties instead of today's more typical manicured lawns.

It's a lot of work, Suzanne Massion said, but ultimately she believes they are leaving a gift.

"This is about long-term gratification," she said. "Not instant anything." Nelson said it is the long-term effects that she, and other conservationists, hope to achieve through the programs. "When you lose the heritage of a place, it becomes Anytown USA," she said. "We need to preserve the places that are special."