REPORTS FROM THE FIELD Central Virginia Land Conservancy

by Kyle Simpson

CVALC ended 2022 with four new easements in the service area totaling some 640 acres. Several easements are already well underway in the current year, with just under 5,000 acres protected in all. On April 22nd, CVALC will host the first annual Cornerstone Celebration at the Claytor Nature Center, celebrating the group’s 20th anniversary. Please plan to join us for food, music, and a great time as we celebrate the volunteers and landowners who have brought us this far. Details at CVALC.org/events. If you have questions about a conservation easement in the CVALC service area please reach out to Kyle at 434-942-4320 or ksimpson@cvalc.org.

Blue Ridge Land Conservancy

Here at BRLC we had an exciting end to 2022 and hope you did too! Our new Stewardship Specialist, Kacie Shifflett, started in December and we have been glad to have her as part of our team!

Kacie has been taking advantage of the warmer January days to get a good head start on our easement monitoring for the year. She is pictured here from her monitoring visit on Mill Mountain.

by Emily Bender

As 2022 wrapped up we were hard at work finalizing easements for the year. Your support helped protect a beautiful forested property along Wilson Creek (Botetourt County) and farmland in the Catawba Valley (Roanoke County)! We have more exciting easement projects in the works, so stay tuned to hear about more protected properties throughout the year.

If you have any questions about a conservation easement, or are interested in protecting your land, please reach out to our office at 540985-0000 ext. 2 or email ebender@brlcva.org.

Southern Virginia Land Conservancy

by Chris Holdren

Fresh air, warmer weather and blooming flowers. What’s not to love about spring? I hope this newsletter finds you as excited about spring as we are here at Southern Virginia Land Conservancy. We are looking forward to getting out and catching up with familiar faces as we get a jump on our yearly monitoring visits. Along with these current easements visits we are looking forward to a dedication ceremony taking place this spring for a gorgeous piece of property that was donated both jointly with Henry County Parks and Recreation and the Southern Virginia Land Conservancy. This property will allow for extension of the Dick & Willie trail while providing other recreational opportunities to the citizens of Martinsville City and the surrounding Henry County area. As always we look forward to helping the citizens of Southside VA with their Conservation efforts. If you have questions about a conservation easement in the SVALC service area please reach out to Chris at 276-224-6489 or choldren@svalc.org.