The+Nature+Conservancy-+North+Carolina

__**The Nature Conservancy: Its Work in North Carolina**__
On our next to last day, our group received a visit at school from the Nature Conservancy's Conservation Director, Rick Stunemund. By coincidence, Rick had a Quaker education in Philadelphia, before beginning work for the Conservancy in Wyoming, Florida, Georgia, and finally North Carolina (a total of 20 years!). Rick explained that the Conservancy, the largest conservation organization in the world, is focused on purchasing tracts of land with significant biodiversity, both within the U.S. (where it began its work) and abroad (in 33 foreign countries; it now has over 4,000 employees). It conserves land by two primary methods, purchase and easements (whereby landowners agree to attach perpetual legal restrictions, preventing development). He started by joking that Conservancy people are all "map junkies," and showed us two very detailed maps, making clear how the first step to conservation is meticulous mapping of biodiverse "hot spots." Through the maps, he explained the three basic biological areas within this state (the Coastal Plain, Piedmont, and Southern Blue Ridge), and noted that the Conservancy has not been very active in the Piedmont because it is so difficult to find large tracts of undisturbed land with high biodiversity. But it has been very active in the Coastal Plain, where the state has the world's highest diversity of carnivorous plants, as well as vast wetland tracts essential for migratory birds and for rare mammals such as the reintroduced red wolf (on the Alligator River Peninsula). This area is one of the three coastal regions in the whole U.S. which is most vulnerable to rising sea levels. The Conservancy is also very active in the Southern Appalachians, which are vulnerable to second-home development and logging. It has recently completed major work in the Chimney Rock area. Rick provided us with many pamphlets on the Conservancy's North Carolina work, including fliers on its controlled burn program. Particularly on the Coastal Plain and in the Sandhills, controlled burns are essential to restoring the high biodiversity of the original long-leaf pine ecosystem, which is now down to just 3% of its original extent.