Pat Burns of Nature Noted, the only blog devoted to discussing land trusts, summarizes the current controversy over the activities of large trusts like The Nature Conservancy on Grist Mill. (There's even more coverage on Nature Noted itself.)

For academic takes on land trusts, in theory and practice, it's worth checking out this issue of the Natural Resources Journal, which contains a PERC-sponsored symposium on "Legal and Economic Issues in Land Conservation."