Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy to Receive Donation from Land Trust Day

Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy to Receive Donation from Land Trust Day

The Mast General Store celebrates Land Trust Day on Saturday, June 4th. Recognized for the ninth year at Mast Store, Land Trust Day is a friend-raising event encouraging new memberships in local land trusts as well as an educational opportunity to learn how these groups unite the past and future by preserving our land heritage. The Mast Store in Hendersonville will host the Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy and will contribute 20% of the day’s sales to further its efforts.

According to the Conservation Trust for North Carolina, developed land has increased 77 percent in the mountains in the last two decades, from 475,000 acres to 840,000 acres. During that same time forest land acreage decreased by 280,000 (8 percent), and 167,000 acres of croplands (43 percent) were lost. If those same trends continue, North Carolina can expect that in the next 20 years 1.4 million acres of forest land will be lost and an additional 2.4 million acres of land will be developed. Land trust organizations are working hard to save the areas that we all love and that contribute to our health, our environmental quality, and that also ensure the strength of the state’s economy.

The CMLC broke ground on a longtime project just outside of Hendersonville last year. The Ochlawaha Bog restoration project will recreate the original habitat of this rare southern Appalachian bog, which was drained to create agricultural land. CMLC has been acquiring land at Ochlawaha in 1998 and has amassed a total of 30 acres at the site. The extensive restoration work will provide habitat for the reintroduction of the bunched arrowhead, an exceptionally rare plant once found at Ochlawaha.

Outside of Henderson County and neighboring Greenville County, South Carolina, the bunched arrowhead is not found anywhere else in the world. With the bog’s restoration, the plant will be ready for reintroduction as early as next year.

“We’ve been working to try to make it happen for years,” said CMLC Executive Director Kieran Roe. “Part of our mission is to save the plants that are rare and the habitat that supports them.” The restoration also serves to improve the water quality of Mud Creek, which once snaked through the Ochlawaha.

For more information on land trusts, stop by the information table on Saturday, June 4th in all Mast Store locations. Visit the local land trust’s websites - www.carolinamountain.org - for more information on current projects and how to become a member of the organization. To learn more about land trust activities in general, visit the Land Trust Alliance online at www.lta.org.