French Broad River Valley

The French Broad River (the world’s third oldest river) is central to the region’s economy, tourism, agriculture, and way of life. This focus area includes a significant portion of the French Broad River Basin, as well as surrounding high grassy meadows, forested coves, and bottomland farms. Our key conservation projects in this area include protection of working agricultural lands in the Sandy Mush farming community, as well as Sandy Mush Bald, the state-owned Sandy Mush Game Lands, and the Canton watershed — an 873-acre botanical wonderland which features hiking and biking trails.

Conservation

Both the mountains and the valleys of the French Broad River basin contain valuable ecological and cultural features including an exceptional biological diversity of plants and animals, pristine headwater streams, fertile soils, scenic beauty and intact agricultural communities.

Recreation

The publicly accessible Sandy Mush Game Lands and Rough Creek Watershed offer a range of outdoor recreation activities, including hiking, biking, hunting, and birdwatching. Landowners of some of our conservation easements have generously allowed us to lead guided group hikes on their protected properties as part of our outings program.

Stewardship

Our volunteer work days in this area have included: removing trash on a tract adjoining the Sandy Mush Game Lands, removing invasive species on our Robinson Rough preserve and other conservation properties, treating hemlock trees for protection against the hemlock wooly adelgid, and projects to protect stream quality and build trails on our Community Farm.