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Educated Decisions!
Written By: Dr. Gary Wein - Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust | Issue: 2018/06 - June
The mission of the Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust is “to protect valuable land resources for all generations.”
The Land Trust’s efforts to accomplish this mission fall into three programs, including conservation, stewardship, and education. The first two programs are linked. First you conserve and then you take care of what you have conserved. Based on natural heritage data and climate resiliency (the ecosystem’s ability to adjust to changing climatic conditions), we have a good idea what the most important places are to conserve in Macon and Jackson Counties.
We conserve by working with land owners to donate their land or a conservation easement, consulting with landowners on how to best manage their resources, and in rare instances we will purchase land. To steward our conserved properties requires surveillance, building and maintaining trails, dealing with invasive plants and animals, and habitat restoration. Because we do not have unlimited resources to both conserve and steward, we’ve developed programs in education that help us to extend our limited resources.
The premise of our education programming is that educated people make educated decisions. With this in mind, the Land Trust has developed education programming for the children of our communities, Land Trust members, and the general public. Through education programming with organizations such as the Literacy Council, the Boys and Girls Club, local schools, and after school groups, the Land Trust’s North Carolina Certified Environmental Educator, Sarah Pursel, teaches ecological concepts via field trips and fun filled activities.
We also provide educational opportunities for adults. If you support the Land Trust, you are invited to EcoTours that take our members to the special places we conserve and protect. We have strongly supported the education of the general public through public lectures in both Highlands and Cashiers with our partners at The Village Green and the Coalition for Nonnative Invasive Plant Management.
To learn more about HCLT’s education programming and how your land trust protects the quality of the air you breathe, the water you drink and healthy habitat for all who live here visit hicashlt.org or call (828) 526-1111. Become a member today − together we can save mountains!
