Landowners in the Roanoke region protected more than 9,700 acres with conservation easements in 2009, ranging from more than 5,100 acres in the Carvins Cove Natural Reserve in Roanoke and Botetourt counties to a 31-acre wetland behind an elementary school in Bedford County.
“It was another banner year for land conservation in our area,” said Roger Holnback, executive director of the Western Virginia Land Trust (WVLT). “Thanks go to the private landowners, generous financial donors, and state partners who make it possible to preserve what makes western Virginia a special place.”
The Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF), a public foundation created by the General Assembly in 1966, holds most of the new conservation easements. VOF jointly holds two easements on Carvins Cove with WVLT, the second of which was finalized in September. VOF also worked with a southwest Roanoke County landowner, Janet Wynot, to protect 174 acres near the top of Bent Mountain.
“We didn’t want to see the land divided up,” said Wynot. “It’s a nice farm. The land lays good.”
Wynot’s father purchased the land with her 40 years ago when he tired of driving to the Starkey area and back with her to tend horses they were boarding. “He said, ‘This is ridiculous. You find some land of your own and I’ll pay half,’” Wynot recounted.
Today Wynot keeps seven horses, five of her own and two she boards on the farm. “We’re glad we did it,” she said of the conservation easement.
VOF easement specialist Ruth Babylon, who worked on the Wynot easement, observes, “Easements in the region last year conserved everything from habitat to recreational resources to historic resources to family farms. They truly reflected the diversity of VOF’s mission.”
In Bedford County, WVLT partnered with the Nature Conservancy and the Army Corps of Engineers to protect and restore a wetland area along Goose Creek behind Montvale Elementary School. The project will tie into the existing nature trail system in the Montvale county park, and will also benefit local ball players, as excess dirt will be used to improve drainage on nearby ball fields.
WVLT members George and Karen Barnhart of Salem have protected their 335-acre farm on Craig’s Creek about six miles east of New Castle in Craig County with a conservation easement held by the Virginia Outdoors Foundation, following a site visit and meeting with WVLT staff.
Both Barnharts have deep feelings about their land. “We would like to keep it in a farm,” Mrs. Barnhart said. Mr. Barnhart, who comes from a strong Church of the Brethren background said, “Stewardship of the land is my theology. I hope people will look at the land as more than a place to live.”
In Franklin County, WVLT worked with a long-time Roanoke doctor, Milton Miller, and his wife Elizabeth to protect their 93-acre farm along the Blackwater River. The Millers’ easement protects water quality along the river and a tributary, in addition to limiting development to the existing two homes on the farm.
“I want to keep it the way it is,” Dr. Miller said. “This is pretty land, you ought to protect it.”
Dr. and Mrs. Miller’s daughter, Ann, takes care of a herd of Black Angus beef cattle, pigs, llamas and chickens, and tends a big garden and a greenhouse where she grows tomato plants and geraniums.
Also in 2009, WVLT and the Blue Ridge Soil and Water Conservation district worked with a local landowner along the Blue Ridge Parkway in Franklin County to protect over a mile of a beautiful, cold-running trout stream.
The mission of the Western Virginia Land Trust is “promoting the conservation of western Virginia’s natural resources—farms, forests, waterways and rural landscapes.” Since 1996, WVLT has helped protect more than 81,000 acres of land in its service area.
The Virginia Outdoors Foundation protected 55,000 acres across the state in 2009.
For more information on these two organizations, visit www.westernvirginialandtrust.org and www.virginiaoutdoorsfoundation.org Contact David at [email protected]