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Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust
Preserving rural communities and culture in northwestern North Carolina through the protection of the land resource upon which they depend.
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Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Mitchell, Watauga, Wilkes and Yancey Counties
Email: info@brrlt.org Web: www.brrlt.org
Address: PO Box 2557, Boone , NC 28607
TEL: (336) 359-2909
FAX: (336) 359-8643
Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust had its birth when two discussion groups, sponsored respectively by the League of Women Voters of Watauga County and the Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development Council, Inc., of Sugar Grove, began discussing the loss of farmland and rural culture in the mountains in early 1997. These groups merged, drew in additional interested parties from Wilkes and Alleghany counties, and in late 1997, decided that a new land trust with contacts and credibility in the rural community was needed in the area. Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust was formed in January of 1998 primarily in order to protect farmland and working forest tracts in our seven county area of northwestern North Carolina, adopting the same area as its parent organization, Blue Ridge RC&D.
Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust has now protected properties in all seven of the counties in which it works, and has protected just under 5000 acres in its first seven years of existence. Of this total, 4177 acres has been protected through donated conservation easements, 189 acres through bargain-sale purchase of conservation easements, 340 acres through fee-simple purchase and transfer to governmental entities, and 147 acres we own outright. With 86% of the land we have protected the result of donated conservation easements, BRRLT has been able to keep its overhead costs very low. Through the end of 2004, after seven years of operations, our overhead cost per acre protected is roughly $105.00/acre. We are extremely proud of our record of being able to operate over an extended period in this efficient manner. Further, given the appraised values of the easements donated to BRRLT since 1998, every dollar raised by or donated to BRRLT over its life has leveraged the donation of $31.00 in conservation easements. We hope that our members and our partners in the philanthropic community are equally proud of this achievement.
Blue Ridge Rural Land Trust has completed a quite impressive body of work in 2004, with the closing of no less than 15 land or easement acquisition projects totaling 955 acres. These include fee-simple donations of an additional 75 acres on The Peak in Mitchell and a 3.7 acre tract on the route of the Middle Fork Greenway in Watauga, and conservation easements on 11 farms in Alleghany, Ashe, Watauga, Yancey, and Avery counties. Three of these easement properties are contiguous to or in the viewshed of the Blue Ridge Parkway, nine protect significant water resources, seven protect significant, well-managed farms, two protect significant wildlife habitat, and three are adjacent to other protected lands.
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