Conservation Easement Monitoring: Community Support Matters

It’s the first quarter again, and that means it’s easement monitoring season! Each year the NWALT stewardship team, including a few diehard interns, brave snow and rain and even ticks to inspect and monitor more than 7,000 acres of conserved lands. With properties ranging from 1 to 1000 acres, there is a lot to explore. Our favorite part is engaging with our landowners. Many are working on habitat projects, farming local food, or studying wildlife. Others share pictures of trophy bucks and monster smallies, or the grandkids enjoying a swim in the creek. Together we are protecting what makes NWA such a fine place to live, work, and play.

Land Stewardship Manager, Renee Sniegocki, delineating protection zones.

Most of these properties are private, but they protect our wildlife, our drinking water, our forests and prairies, our history, our quality of life. It takes a lot of resources to ensure the promise of perpetuity. When you make a financial contribution to NWALT, you too are helping protect these special places, and all the things conserved properties protect. Staff time, transportation, equipment, legal defense, our office space at the Smokehouse- we are truly supported by our community. We are supported by you. Grassroots need nurturing to grow. Every time you drive through the tunnel, bike on Kessler Mountain, or float the West Fork, you’re passing through lands that you’ve helped protect…forever. And our stewardship team is out year-round making sure the places we’ve protected together stay protected forever. Thanks to your generosity, we’re making a difference.