Over the Fall semester of 2005, 12 graduate students undertook the task of creating a Strategic Land Protection Plan for the Southern Madison Heritage Trust (SMHT), a land trust based in Hamilton, NY. The Strategic Land Protection Plan is a bold vision. The plan is based on demographic research and inventories of both natural and scenic resources. Using these inventories, suitability models in GIS were created to display various land protection scenarios. Taking advantage of the New York State Canal Corporation's proposal for an Empire State Greenway building on the historic Erie Canal network, the students crafted a proposed greenway for recreational uses, natural resource functions and growth management. As the Chenango Canal is an integral part of the proposed greenway, the long term protection of this corridor is major concern for SMHT. Within the proposed greenway, the students modeled a greenbelt surrounding the four major municipalities that is designed to allow growth while protecting the gateways to the villages, surrounding farmland and biodiversity of the region. The conservation of the proposed 16,000 acre greenbelt can be achieved through the use of regulatory tools, transfer of lands from key partners to SMHT, improved land management by private landowners as well as the exercise of real estate tools used by SMHT such as securing easements through outright purchase or donation from willing landowners.