Bankrupt Boy Scouts may have $10 billion in land. And developers want it.

As the financially struggling Boy Scouts sell off a growing number of campgrounds — conservationists, government officials and others are scrambling to find ways to preserve them as open space.

The land sales are filling the gap of declining enrollment and helping fund a proposed national bankruptcy settlement designed to pay thousands of victims of child sexual abuse. It’s unclear how much land belongs to the Boy Scouts, partly because it's owned by local scout councils.

But evidence in the Scouts' bankruptcy trial indicate there are about 2,000 properties that could be worth as much as $10 billion, and some of which is being sought by developers.

For over a century the Scouts and their local councils have acquired properties across the country where generations have learned to appreciate the outdoors through camping, swimming and canoeing.

Councils in states including Arizona, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin have all recently sold or announced plans to sell camps.

Critics say selling camps to developers goes against the tenants of an organization that is supposed to teach environmental stewardship.

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