The Nature Conservancy Receives $250,000 from Ingalls Foundation
Gift Supports the Protection and Restoration of Warm Springs Mountain
Charlottesville, Virginia—19 July 2004—The Nature Conservancy has received a $250,000 gift from the Louise H. and David S. Ingalls Foundation to support critical conservation on and around Warm Springs Mountain Preserve, a historically and biologically rich forest totaling 9,000 acres in the Alleghenies of western Virginia.
“We are continuing the legacy that the Ingalls family began more than a century ago – to protect Warm Springs Mountain,” said Michael Lipford, state director for The Nature Conservancy in Virginia. “We are honored to use the foundation’s generous gift to help permanently protect one of the best examples of unfragmented forest ecosystems found in the Central Appalachian region. We are grateful for the commitment and generosity that the Ingalls family has shown to our conservation work in Virginia.”
The Ingalls gift will support the Conservancy’s protection and land management efforts, including the inventory and control of invasive species and initiating a fire history study of the pine-oak-heath woodlands on the mountain in collaboration with the University of Tennessee and the University of Texas. In addition, the Conservancy plans to open a Bath County office and make improvements to an interpretive trail that is currently open to the public.
“Thanks in large part to the excellent stewardship by the Ingalls family over the years, Warm Springs Mountain continues to harbor some of the best natural communities in the state of Virginia,” said Linda Crowe, director of protection for The Nature Conservancy in Virginia. “With its linkage to tens of thousands of acres in the national forest, it is truly a gem in the Central Appalachian mountain chain.”
The Conservancy identified Warm Springs Mountain as one of the largest and most biologically significant privately-owned forest blocks in the Central Appalachian Forest. Large private forests like Warm Springs Mountain have become increasingly scarce in the East. Three rare plants, eight rare invertebrates and three rare natural communities – including the globally rare montane pine barren – have been documented on the mountain.
“Warm Springs Mountain has always been a special place for the Ingalls family,” said Barbara Brown, Ph.D, president of the Louise H. and David S. Ingalls Foundation. “Over the past ten years, the Ingalls Foundation has supported a number of Conservancy projects around the country. We are pleased that we can support The Nature Conservancy’s efforts on Warm Springs Mountain – a place that holds so many memories for the Ingalls family – and protect this wonderful aspect of Virginia’s heritage for future generations.”
The Ingalls connection to Warm Springs Mountain dates back more than 130 years, when the family established The Homestead, a famed National Historic Landmark mountain resort located in the Alleghenies of western Virginia. Concerned about inappropriate development on the ridge top towering above The Homestead, Fay Ingalls, acquired Warm Springs Mountain. In March 2002, the Conservancy purchased more than 9,000 acres to protect and restore the natural communities on the mountain.
In Virginia, the Conservancy has established 46 preserves, five National Wildlife Refuges and nearly 70 state and local parks and natural areas.
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