Williamson Protects Natural Heritage

PW illiamson Protect s Natural Herit age

For Peter Williamson (MLAR 88), his undergraduate degree in biology meshed perfectly with his professional landscape architecture training when he answered a 1989 advertisement in LA Digest—they wanted landscape architects who could be instructed in land conservation. Now, Williamson is the Vice President for Conservation Services at Natural Lands Trust, one ofthe oldest and largest land trust organizations in the country. (www.natlands.org) After finishing his course work in 1986 and beginning his career at a small landscape architecture firm in Raleigh, Williamson became increasingly distressed by his projects on the coastal barrier islands north ofWilmington, where resort and second home developments were converting mature forests to roads, lawns and homes in bosques ofremnants live oaks. At the time, he was glad to have the job, but over time, it disturbed him that the coastland was changing so rapidly, and he was on what he felt was the wrong side ofthe change. When Williamson enrolled in the Landscape Architecture department at NC State, he found “the professors emphasized a mindset that you should learn about ecology, politics, land-use law, and develop the ability to take complex problems and sort through the issues to figure out a way to solve, present and talk about the solutions.” “State didn’t focus entirely on design. They offered an extremely wide view ofthe discipline,” he adds. “In landscape architecture you are taught to take a site—a physical problem—and analyze it so you can best apply the program for the property. It was usually a satisfying intellectual challenge,” he notes. “To protect a piece ofland, you need to apply a whole different set ofknowledge—funding sources, real estate law, how the charitable aspects oftax code work, etc.,” says Williamson. “I didn’t know what I was getting into, but I found it just as challenging, and much more satisfying,” he laughs. The Natural Land Trust continues to hire landscape architects.

In fact, the Conservation Services area headed by Williamson boasts seven out of12 employees who were educated as landscape architects. According to Williamson, the area ofland conservation has boomed in the last 15 years. He believes the popularity ofthe field has “grown as a direct result ofthe suburban growth into former farm and ranch lands. The folks who live in these rapidly changing communities have discovered that land trusts can directly address many ofthe issues that concern them, in a way that fits directly into the long history of civic engagement that Americans pride themselves on.” Williamson claims the reason he got the initial job at NLT is because Michael Clark, his first boss, had Dick Wilkinson {former LAR faculty member at NC State} as a professor 20 years prior when Wilkinson taught at the University ofMichigan. He’s happy for the coincidence.

Sadsbury Woods (background image), in western Chester County, Pa., is a 500-acre preserve that Peter Williamson (below) was instrumental in purchasing in 17 separate transactions over five years.