CATAWBA LANDS CONSERVANCY
4530 Park Road Ste 420, Charlotte, NC 28209 www.catawbalands.org

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Organizations Filed Purposes: As a nationally accredited land trust, we conserve and manage land for public benefit in North Carolinas Southern Piedmont. We have conserved 208 properties, totaling 16,596 acres of land. We are the lead agency for the Carolina Thread Trail.

Carolina Thread Trail Program (Thread Trail) is an initiative to develop a regional network of greenways, trails and blueways that reaches 15 counties and 2.3 million people. Thread Trail is a unique 15-county collaboration that will connect communities and conserved land through a network of conservation corridors and trails developed through locally designed plans. Carolina Thread Trail is a separate 501(c)(3) corporation that is a supporting organization of Foundation for the Carolinas. Under a Memorandum of Understanding with Foundation for the Carolinas, the Conservancy acts as the lead agency of the Thread Trail program and was reimbursed $545,345 during 2019 for related services.This long term project under the Conservancy's leadership will permanently protect this region's history, beauty, and diversity, while conserving local lands and providing a broad range of community benefits. Thread Trail will also link more than two million citizens with hundreds of miles of greenways and trails as well as access to rivers for paddling in North and South Carolina, connecting points of regional significance. There are multiple public benefits including economic development, conservation of land, enhancement of water quality, cleaner air, alternative transportation, and healthy recreation activities for all regional citizens, all of which translates to enhanced quality of life. Thread Trail will be freely accessible to everyone. At the end of 2019, there were 1,610 planned trail miles, of which, approximately 260 trail and 170 blueway miles are complete.

Land Acquisition: Catawba Lands Conservancy (the Conservancy) protected four new properties in 2019, totaling 183.82 acres in three counties. The Conservancy works with willing landowners and communities to conserve land in perpetuity by placing voluntary conservation easements on land, accepting donations of land, and occasionally purchasing land. CLC serves a six-county region in North Carolina that includes: Catawba, Gaston, Iredell, Lincoln, Mecklenburg and Union counties. Our conservation efforts focus on four areas: local farms, wildlife/plant habitat, water quality and connecting people to nature. Additionally, many of our properties have important species and habitat that the state of North Carolina designated as Natural Heritage Areas. Further, some of the properties provide critical habitat for state or federally listed threatened or endangered plants or animals.

Land Stewardship: The Conservancy intentionally stewards its conservation assets. Staff monitors activities on fee owned land through site visits. Current conditions are evaluated against the reference conditions established by the Baseline Documentation. Photographs are taken and a monitoring report is generated and archived or the site visit is documented on a site visit report. As part of perpetual due diligence, the Conservancy ensures the plant, wildlife, and other conservation values remain undisturbed and protected. Where appropriate on fee owned property, the Conservancy provides public access opportunities, including both blueways and hiking trails, independently and through Carolina Thread Trail.Facilities for public access include a canoe/kayak launch (Spencer Mt. River Access and Pharr Family Preserve access), the Adam Springs Portage Trail, and canoe/kayak take-out (R.Y. McAden Access); and natural surface or paved hiking trails at the South Fork Trail, South Fork Rail Trail, Long Creek Preserve, Seven Oaks Preserve, Pharr Family Preserve, Buffalo Creek Preserve, Sallys Y Preserve, Catawba Springs Preserve, Girl Scouts, and Eastover Ridge Preserve. The Conservancy also monitors conservation easements using the same protocols as fee owned land. On private property protected by conservation easements, the Conservancy works with willing land owners to further enhance the conservation values already protected.

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Data for this page was sourced from XML published by IRS (public 990 form dataset) from: https://s3.amazonaws.com/irs-form-990/202042459349301409_public.xml