Long Branch Environmental Education Center (Long Branch) is an educational non-profit organization located eighteen miles northwest of Asheville on the Buncombe and Haywood county line. It was founded in 1974 as an ecological sanctuary. Since then, it has evolved into an educational center with the purpose of teaching strategies of sustainability and self-reliance. This week, […]
Hampton Creek Cove State Natural Area (HCC), a 693-acre natural area protected since 1986 and co-managed by the State of Tennessee and SAHC, draws outdoor enthusiasts of all types to its beautiful, wild landscapes and streams that are important habitat for a variety of rare plant and animal species. The natural area is a special […]
Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy recently added 199 more acres of protected land within the Yellow Mountain State Natural Area planning boundary through a land purchase. Located along the North Carolina/Tennessee state line, the Highlands of Roan project has been SAHC’s top priority since its founding in 1974. Since then, we have led an effort to protect […]
When you hike to the top of Little Hump Mountain in the Highlands of Roan, you see a completely unobstructed view of the surrounding mountains from its high elevation grassy bald. The Ridge and Valley Province lies to your west in Tennessee and the renowned peaks of Grandfather Mountain, Table Rock, and Linville Gorge rise to […]
During the first week of May, staff from Navitat Canopy Adventures in Asheville volunteered with SAHC to install water bars on trails on a conservation easement. The property, a 231-acre conservation easement protected by SAHC, is located within the Craggy Mountains in Barnardsville and was protected in two phases. The first phase protected 197 acres and […]
Rural preservation leaders in the Bethel community of Haywood County have announced the permanent protection land along Garden Creek. The property features 13 acres of largely agricultural land, which provides corn, hay, and the critical calving unit for a larger cow-calf operation. The tract also includes a residential area, a barn, and associated farm buildings. While […]
The beautiful mountain streams and rivers of western NC and east TN are plagued with an illness brought on by humans – trash. Each year, river clean-up crews and conservation organizations spend countless hours to remove thousands of pounds of tires, old appliances, and even entire cars, from our waterways. Staff from the Southern Appalachian […]
The Gott’s 218-acre farm in Madison County is an icon of responsible land management and sustainability. Peter and Polly take seriously their responsibility of stewarding the land. Being able to hand their property down to their children intact is one of their highest priorities. To do that, they decided to put their land into conservation […]
In the 1990’s, 67-year-old Maggie Valley resident Tom Alexander realized that he would have to do something to be able to hand down his beloved land, 1,000 mostly undeveloped acres adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, intact to his children. The land had been in his family for 60 years, but development in […]
The Virginia big-eared bat (Plecotus townsendii) is an endangered bat that only lives in North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. Virginia big-eared bats prefer caves in karst regions (areas underlain with limestone bedrock and many caves and sinkholes) dominated by oak/hickory or beech/maple/hemlock forest. SAHC expanded the bat’s habitat in the Highlands of Roan […]
