Land conservationists initially owned (4)
I believe the answer is:
chad
'land' is the definition.
(Chad is an example)
'conservationists initially owned' is the wordplay.
'initially' indicates taking the first letters.
'owned' becomes 'had' ('have' can be a synonym of 'own').
The initial letter of 'conservationists' is 'c'.
'c'+'had'='CHAD'
(Other definitions for chad that I've seen before include "Feature of controversial election once" , "Bit of paper" , "Punched paper; African nation" , "Large, shallow lake in north central Africa" , "Piece of (almost?) punched-out paper" .)