Initiative is slated to increase conservation

A new initiative partnering state-level organizations and private landowners - the Ecosystem Enhancement Program (EEP) - is expected to dramatically increase the rate of land and water protection in North Carolina.

This initiative was founded in July 2003 through an agreement among the N.C. Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (DENR), the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the North Carolina Department of Transportation (NCDOT).

"A number of private, non-governmental, nonprofit corporations are working to protect the land, either through conservation easements or purchase," Executive Director James Coman of the Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust said in a Jan. 2 interview. "The Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust is one of those. We got started in early 1998, and we were incorporated in 1999. Since our start, we've saved just under 4,000 acres in the seven-county area we serve."

Coman said the seven-county area served by his organization includes Alleghany, Wilkes, Ashe, Watauga, Avery, Mitchell and Yancey counties. The Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust's efforts are directed towards preserving farm and forest-land in that area.

A press release from the Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust indicated that the state's open spaces are disappearing quickly, as illustrated by the following statistics:

In the last 20 years, North Carolina has lost 2.8 million acres of its signature woodlands and farmland.

Currently, the state loses natural areas at the rate of over 277 acres a day.

Much of this land is converted to unnatural landscapes, such as buildings and parking lots.

If present trends continue, North Carolina will lose another 2.4 million acres of natural lands by the year 2022. Almost all of this land conversion is irreversible.

The press release further indicated that less than nine percent of the land base in North Carolina is protected. Many people believe that there is only a 10-year window to save the state's best remaining natural places.

Therefore, the North Carolina Department of the Environment and Natural Resources (NC DENR) and North Carolina's land trusts are working to address the challenge of North Carolina's rapidly disappearing natural resources. DENR and a network of 23 local and regional land trusts based in North Carolina have embarked on the new partnership initiative.

"We currently have two projects that should close next week," Coman said. "One is a 107-acre tract on the Watauga River in Watauga County, and the other is a six-acre tract in Wilkes County, which is an ‘in-holding' on an already protected 200-acre farm. As of right now, there are 13 projects that are ‘in the pipeline' to have closure either sometime during 2004 or early 2005."

The initiative combines current efforts and resources in DENR and DOT to enhance wetland and stream water quality protection. At the same time, road construction delays are reduced.

Funding for the new initiative comes from existing federal highway dollars that are allocated to North Carolina for offsetting wetlands and stream bank loss and other types of water quality damage that is associated with transportation projects.

Get the rest of this article in this week's issue of the Alleghany News!

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