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The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™
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Features
To read more stories about what's happening with TNC in North Carolina, check out our Afield magazines in our Publications section.
Earth Day Feature - Picnic for Earth!
Earth Day 2013: Our Favorite Picnic Foods
We want to help you enjoy Earth Day with our staff's favorite picnic foods. Read more.
What is Picnic for Earth?
See our map of picnics around the world for Earth Day! Browse our Earth Day site.
Great Places April
Faces of Conservation: Mike Norris
Mike Norris, our Sandhills Prescribed Fire Specialist and Land Steward, feels most comfortable outside participating in controlled burns. Read more.
Faces of Conservation: Sara Babin
Helping with controlled burns is just on thing that Sara Babin, our Southeast Coastal Plain Conservation Coordinator, spends her days doing. Read more.
Great Places March
Alligator River Protection Grows
TNC's Fred Annand has worked on acquisitions in Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge for more than three decades; The latest comes this fall with the purchase of a conservation easement. Read more.
Faces of Conservation
We continue this month with two new employee profiles - Southeast Coastal Plain Program Director Dan Ryan and Fire Specialist/Land Steward Angie Carl.
Great Places February
Acquisition is Only the Beginning
Mike Norris loves his job restoring longleaf forest in North Carolina’s sandhills. Read More.
Betty Ann and Gary Schenk: Supporting the Conservancy’s Mission
Betty Anne and Gary Schenk have spent a good part of their lives in exotic, tropical locales. Read more.
Faces of Conservation: Rebecca Benner
Learn more about our well-traveled Director of Science, Rebecca Benner. Read more.
Announcing the Half Hell Haul Run and Fun Run/Walk
We are adding a cool new race to our annual Fire in the Lakes festival. This event is fun for all ages! Read more.
Great Places January
Faces of Conservation: Evan Raskin
We kick off our Faces of Conservation feature with two of our invaluable AmeriCorps employees. Get to know Evan Raskin. Read more.
Faces of Conservation: Tara Granke
Meet Tara Granke, AmeriCorps Project Conserve employee in our Asheville office! Read more.
Great Places December
From Methane to Flytraps: Venus Flytrap Lab to Expand
In 2005, the General Assembly added the Venus flytrap to its list of official state symbols; Becky Westbrooks is determined to do right by the state’s carnivorous plant. Read more.
Rob Dejournett and Jennifer O’Daniel: Paying it Forward for Their Daughter
When Rob Dejournett was growing up in Hawaii, he learned to love the outdoors. “I grew up outside,” he explains. “That’s what you do in Hawaii.” Read more.
Great Places November
Controlled Burning: The People and the Places
Margit Bucher Celebrates 25 Years with the Conservancy
Growing up in her native Germany, there was never any doubt that Margit Bucher would spend much of her life outside. Read more.
Maura High: Fire Volunteer Extraordinaire
There are many ways to support The Nature Conservancy. Maura High covers the whole gamut. Read more.
Burning Beyond our Boundaries
The Conservancy’s controlled burning usually occurs in winter on TNC-owned property. That changed this year thanks to a grant from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Read more.
Great Places October
Orchid Lovers From Across the Country Fund TNC Restoration
Orchids aren’t confined to exotic tropical locales or fancy greenhouses. One hot spot is Brunswick County. Fifteen species have been identified in the Green Swamp and surrounding areas. That drew the attention of the American Orchid Society, which recently raised $10,000 to restore the Conservancy’s Myrtle Head Savanna Preserve. Read more.
Nags Head Woods Preserve Grows
The Conservancy has worked at Nags Head Woods for more than 30 years. But, there is still work to be done as evidenced by a recent 20-acre purchase. Money was provided by the Town of Nags Head, a member bequest and longtime Conservancy supporter Fred Stanback. Read more.
Climate Change Adaptation Project Expands to Swanquarter
On-the-ground conservation often involves delayed gratification. It can take years to know if something is actually working. This summer, Albemarle Climate Change Adaptation Project Director Brian Boutin got to experience what is just about as close to instant gratification as you can get with the creation of a new oyster reef off of Swanquarter National Wildlife Refuge. Read more.
Great Places August - All About Our Freshwater Study
Trustee supports pioneer study
Winston-Salem physician and Conservancy trustee Malcolm Brown has long appreciated The Nature Conservancy’s work. He attributes his love to a few very special experiences throughout his life. Read more
Still a Lot to Learn about NC Rivers
Although the Conservancy has protected nearly 700,000 acres across a number of river basins in North Carolina, we don’t have a really good idea about what is going on in all these basins today and how they are likely to change in the future. That’s the point of freshwater research that was started by TNC’s former Science Director Cat Burns. Read more
TNC Staff Up-Close: Kimberly Meitzen
It may sound counterintuitive, but Kimberly Meitzen is interested in water because she grew up in the desert. The El Paso, Texas native used to run along levees on the Rio Grande, where there was often no river water to be seen. “That made me appreciate the value of water,” she says. Read more
Great Places July
North Carolina Chapter Alum Heads to Borneo on Climate Change Project
The Conservancy is addressing one of its top conservation priorities—protecting forests for the carbon they sequester—through a partnership called the Berau Forest Carbon Program. Scott Belan traveled to the rain forest to learn more about the project on the ground. - Read more
The Conservancy’s Charlotte Connection
Although TNC doesn’t have any projects in Mecklenburg County, there are strong ties between our organization and the Charlotte area. Much of that connection comes from UNC-Charlotte’s biology program – work that was important to several key Conservancy projects: the Green Swamp in the Southeast Coastal Plain, Hickory Nut Gorge in the Southern Blue Ridge and Black Ankle Bog in the Piedmont.. Read more
Great Places June
Phoenix Mountain: 30 Years in the making
No one knows how Phoenix Mountain got its name, but it lived up to that moniker this spring. “I liken it to the Phoenix bird rising from the ashes,” explains the Conservancy’s Merrill Lynch. Read more
Special Earth Day Feature
Picnic for the Planet: local chefs and local foods.
Chefs around NC celebrate local food this Earth Day by sharing their favorite picnic recipes. Read more.
Great Places May
NYC Boy Gets Valuable Lesson from Climate Change Project
Noah Berman found his Bar Mitzvah project while listening to the radio as his dad drove him to school in Manhattan last spring. NPR’s story on the Conservancy’s Albemarle Climate Change Adaptation Project caught his attention. Read more.
Forest Collaboration Proves Successful
When David Ray joined the Conservancy five years ago, one of his first meetings was with Fire Manager Margit Bucher. “Margit asked me one question,” he recalls. “Were we going to proceed with the Southern Blue Ridge Fire Learning Network?” Read more.
Great Places April
Venus Flytraps
Learn about this rare plant, native to North Carolina, find out where to see it and what threatens its habitat. Read more.
Earth Day Picnic for the Planet
We're celebrating local food this Earth Day with the help of four well known chefs across North Carolina. Read more.
Great Places March
Lydia and Charlie Williams: A Passion for Michaux
Charlie and Lydia Williams were a little taken aback when Assistant Director of Philanthropy Ralph Phillips showed up on their doorstep this fall to thank them for more than 30 years of support for The Nature Conservancy. Read more.
Great Places February
Green Swamp Preserve on the Grow
The Conservancy’s Green Swamp Preserve in Brunswick County is the same age as the North Carolina Chapter, created in 1977. Today, conservation continues with the addition of a 463-acre tract on the east side of the Green Swamp. Read more.
TNC Protects 98 Acres in Hoke County
The Nature Conservancy has acquired the 98-acre L.F. Bass Jr. Tract in the Quewhiffle Township of Hoke County. The Conservancy will begin work this spring to plant longleaf pine and native grasses on the property. Read more.
Great Places January
Elisabeth Feil, 30-year Donor
When Elisabeth Feil went looking for an environmental group to support, the Conservancy was a good fit. “You work behind the scenes and don’t make a big ado about things. It suited my personality,” she explains. Three decades later, she is still pleased with her decision. Read more.
Students Assist on Roanoke River
Erica Patterson pretty much thought that she had already seen the most rural places that Halifax County has to offer. But, the 16-year old changed her mind after volunteering with The Nature Conservancy. “I thought Tillery was the boonies,” she said. “But, I was wrong.” Read more.
Great Places December
Morrison Foundation: An Apartment Building in Charlotte Becomes a Plant Conservation Project in Western North Carolina
At first glance, an apartment building in downtown Charlotte and plant conservation in the North Carolina mountains would appear to have nothing in common. But, thanks to the Robert Haywood Morrison Foundation, the two are very closely connected.
The Foundation gave the Conservancy the building, which was sold to generate money to fund the Robert Haywood Morrison Plant Conservation Initiative. Read more.
Skip Pudney: Telling the Conservancy’s Story
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then Skip Pudney’s work for the Conservancy is worth at least a 100,000 words and growing.
Pudney, a Philadelphia native now living in Leland where he is a supervisor at a chemical plant, has been taking pictures for three decades, with his photography work becoming more serious in the last ten years. Read more.
Great Places November
Visiting the Ancient Bald Cypress Trees on the Black River
The oldest baldcypress trees ever found are located on the Black River in Pender and Bladen Counties. Tree-ring dating, or dendrochronology, has been used to prove that some of those old baldcypress are over 1,500 years old. A few may be over 2,000 years old, but this will be difficult to prove because many of the oldest trees suffer some degree of heart rot. Nevertheless, only a handful of tree species worldwide have been proven to live for more than 1,500 years. Read more.
Military Driving Sandhills Conservation Success
It has been a good summer for conservation in the Sandhills. At a time when a flagging economy has reduced public and private dollars for acquisition, Sandhills Project Director Ryan Elting successfully closed on two large tracts of property – 390 acres in Cumberland County that will become part of Carvers Creek State Park and 543 acres in Scotland County that will be added to the Sandhills Game Lands. Read more.
Great Places October
Little Yellow Mountain Summit Protection Complete
Jay Leutze was one of many visitors testing out the observation deck at Roan Mountain when it reopened this summer after a facelift.
“You stand on the deck and you see the west face of Little Yellow Mountain – you are looking right at Hawk Mountain Farm,” Leutze explains. “It is a really gratifying experience.”
It is gratifying because the 210-acre Hawk Mountain Farm is now protected along with the entire summit of Little Yellow Mountain. Leutze serves on the board of the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (SAHC), which partnered with TNC to acquire the last unprotected tract atop the 5,504-foot mountain. Read more.
Networking for Ecosystem Health
A decade ago, The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Forest Service and other land management partners created the U.S. Fire Learning Network (FLN), to improve ecological fire restoration across the country.
Today, there are eight regional networks. One of those is focused on the Southern Blue Ridge. Within that landscape, a group of partners is working on the central escarpment of the Blue Ridge. Read more
Great Places September
Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge Grows
Scott Lanier remembers the first time he visited the Albemarle Sound. As a child, visiting the beach for the Lincolnton native, meant going to Myrtle Beach. “But, one year my uncle and my dad took us to the Outer Banks,” he says. “We hit Pea Island and I saw those blue goose signs (the logo for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a blue goose). My uncle explained that this was a special place set aside for wildlife. Man alive, I thought this is something else. I always wanted to get back here.” Today, he is back in the area serving as deputy manager of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. Read more
NC Coastal Plain Forests Could be Dramatically Altered by Newly Discovered Pest
Joni Mitchell once wrote, “You don’t know what you got ‘til it’s gone.” People who are familiar with the coastal plain forests of North Carolina may soon find out how true that is – thanks to laurel wilt, which just reached the state and is likely to wipe out a substantial part of the forest midstory. Read more
Debbie Crane
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