The Nature Conservancy. Protecting nature. Preserving life.™

The Nature Conservancy recently purchased 390 acres adjacent to Carvers Creek State Park. The property, which is northwest of the existing state park, will eventually become part of the new park. In the meantime, the Conservancy will enhance and restore aspects of the tract’s longleaf pine forest habitat for the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and other longleaf pine forest species such as fox squirrel and pine snake.

“This is a beautiful, important property,” says Ryan Elting, the Conservancy’s Sandhills Program Director. “We’ll thin trees, plant native grass seed and longleaf pines and re-introduce controlled burns as part of our work on the site. It is amazing to see how the restoration process brings out the biological potential of a property like this and creates something more ecologically and aesthetically rich.”

The Conservancy did similar restoration work on the properties it has already transferred to the park. The Conservancy, working with Fort Bragg and the state’s conservation trust funds, has been responsible for acquiring nearly all of the land that is currently part of Carvers Creek State Park.

The Conservancy has been involved in Sandhills conservation since the 1960s, when it assisted with the acquisition of Weymouth Woods Natural Area.  It has maintained a Sandhills office in Southern Pines since 2001. The Conservancy has protected nearly 16,000 acres in the Sandhills.