VOLUME 18 // ISSUE 1 Spring 2018
NORTH CAROLINA COASTAL LAND TRUST
COASTLINES Getting Down & Dirty with Land Stewardship By Camilla M. Herlevich
How is the future of Land Stewardship ensured at the Coastal Land Trust? The Coastal Land Trust has a special fund that is dedicated to Land Stewardship; its principal is invested and its income is applied to the cost of Basic Land Stewardship Activities. We estimate that, given the amount of land in our portfolio and the growth ahead, we should add approximately $2M to this fund over the next year or so. Land Stewardship IS the future of the Coastal Land Trust! If you’d like to know more about how you can participate in building this fund, please give us a call! 910-792-4524 x210.
Racheal Carnes, a Coastal Land Trust Duke Stanback Intern, and Stewardship Director Jesica Blake take to a 4wheeler to monitor property with difficult access in Carteret County. They are suited up and prepared for battle with pesky mosquitos.
N
ot so very long ago, the Coastal Land Trust owned just half a dozen pieces of land and a few conservation easements. We didn’t have any staff scientists to monitor the land or help mark boundaries, so we’d ask a volunteer biologist to help with these basic stewardship tasks. Back in the days before hand-held GPS or smart phones, they would use a survey map and a compass when they headed out to the field. We called these conservation activities “Land Stewardship.” Today, virtually everything about Land Stewardship has changed! The Coastal Land Trust now owns 34 preserves covering 9,732 acres, holds 130 conservation easements over another 35,983 acres, and monitors another
6,083 acres of lands that have been transferred to other agencies. We now have four full-time biologists on staff, a pick-up truck and a shed full of equipment. The “tools of the trade” our Stewardship staff take with them when heading out to the field (or woods, beaches, farms and swamplands) include iPads equipped with GPS positioning software, chain saws to clear brush for trail-building, neon paint for boundary marking, longleaf pine seedlings or bags of oyster shells for habitat restoration, mobile phones to share pictures and live videos on Facebook, and the cell number of the closest law enforcement officer in case they find illegal activities!
What is Land Stewardship? “Land Stewardship” as an idea, however, hasn’t changed! It still encompasses all the conservation activities that protect—or even improve—the conservation resources of a property after the deal is sealed. Basic Land Stewardship Tasks include: marking boundaries and installing gates; annual monitoring of all lands and conservation easements; talking with landowners about their future plans; record-keeping; learning about and responding to external threats or changes to the land (e.g., condemnation); and Stewardship, continued on page 5
New Steward Watches Over Springer’s Point Preserve The Coastal Land Trust is thrilled to welcome Lena O’Neal as the new Springer’s Point Preserve Steward! Lena, an Ocracoke native, has spent her life exploring Springer’s Point and its treasures. She has fond memories of walking through Springer’s Point with her grandfather as a little girl. After all, Springer’s Point is literally in Lena’s backyard, a perfect vantage point for her childhood playground and to watch over the Preserve. Lena is no stranger to introducing others to the ecological and cultural significance of Springer’s Point. As a program specialist at Ocracoke’s campus of the North Carolina Center for the Advancement of
www.CoastalLandTrust.org
Teaching (NCCAT), Lena has had the opportunity to share Springer’s Point Preserve with numerous groups of North Carolina school teachers. She has also repeatedly volunteered to help the Coastal Land Trust in planting native marsh grasses as a part of the living shoreline project at the Preserve. After attending UNC-Wilmington, Lena worked at UNC-Wilmington’s Office of Transition Programs. She returned to Ocracoke in 2006 where she lives with her husband, Mark, and children, Maren and Paxton. Springer’s Point has always been O’Neal, continued on page 5
Lena Austin O’Neal
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