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Blue Ridge Parkway Project
The Conservation Trust for North Carolina focuses its own conservation efforts on protection of scenic views, mountain streams, and forests along the Blue Ridge Parkway. The Blue Ridge Parkway is the nation’s most popular national park, attracting over 21 million visitors and generating over $2.3 billion to the economy of western North Carolina each year. Visitors on this scenic byway are treated to spectacular mountain views and a glimpse into the heart of our nation’s natural and cultural heritage.
The Conservation Trust works with landowners to protect properties along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and often transfers those properties to the National Park Service for inclusion in the boundaries of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Protection of properties is accomplished through either purchase or donation of the land itself or through a lasting conservation agreement on the land. The Conservation Trust is protecting this beloved landscape for future generations.
Map and Highlighted Projects |
Although national forests bound
190 of the Parkway's 469 miles on both sides, most of the spectacular
natural lands within view are in private ownership.
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For additional information about the Blue Ridge Parkway’s history, places of general interest, flora, and fauna, visit the National Park Service’s Blue Ridge Parkway website.
The Parkway is in danger of becoming just another road through a common urban landscape. Developed land in the North Carolina mountains increased 77% during the last two decades. This loss of natural lands around the Parkway is destroying the mountain vistas of thriving forests, clear mountain streams, and classic rural farms that millions of people travel the Parkway to see. Unchecked development is also putting rare and native species and habitat at great risk. Tourism, North Carolina’s second largest industry, will decline if the Blue Ridge Parkway’s scenic views are further compromised by highly visible development.
National Park Service Study documenting the impact the Parkway’s scenic degradation will have on North Carolina.
Link to National Park Service site on flora and fauna.
"As more visitors flock to the Blue Ridge Parkway, conservationists and officials are
striving to preserve what lures them all there in the first place. The gorgeous views."
- The Charlotte Observer
 The Blue Ridge Parkway Foundation's specialty tag enrollment exceeds 13,000!
The Foundation's target enrollment is 50,000 specialty plates which will generate an additional $1M in revenues for park programs annually. Share the journey by ordering your tag at the NC DMV web site or using a convenient mail-in application from the Parkway Foundation, 336-721-0260. More information can be found <here>
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