Conservation Case Studies

Category to drop feature articles about conservation success stories.

PEC Donates Land to National Park

PEC Donates Land to National Park

Posted on by Paula Combs

Shenandoah National Park just grew a little bigger and a little more beautiful. This past May, We donated a 17.2-acre property of ours in Rappahannock County to the National Park Service. A forested and vacant parcel on a mountain slope south of Sperryville, Virginia, the land is within the legislative boundary of Shenandoah National Park.

“The property is surrounded by the park on three of its four sides, so it’s a key puzzle piece,” says Carolyn Sedgwick, PEC’s Rappahannock County land conservation officer, who oversaw the donation from PEC to the National Park Service. “This great public-private partnership with the National Park Service has resulted in the expansion of one of the most important wildlife corridors on the east coast.”

The donated acreage is by an area in the national park designated as federal wilderness — the highest conservation designation for federal land — making it an important and strategic area to conserve.

Fenced in at Roundabout Meadows

Fenced in at Roundabout Meadows

Posted on by Paula Combs

Polluted water is not only bad for us and the environment, but it’s bad for livestock as well,” says Celia Vuocolo, habitat and stewardship specialist at PEC.

A significant stewardship project is wrapping up this fall at Roundabout Meadows, the 141- acre property near Gilbert’s Corner that was gifted to PEC in 2013. The project is focused on implementing agricultural Best Management Practices (BMPs) that will keep livestock away from the property’s streams and provide a clean source of water for cattle. As part of the effort, over 2 miles of fencing and almost a mile of pipeline plumbing for a watering system have been installed.

“Our long-term plan for Roundabout Meadows is to retain its agricultural use, and we want to do so in a manner that is in harmony with being good stewards of the land and water resources, while farming continues on the property,” says Michael Kane, director of conservation at PEC.

Making Progress at the Piedmont Overlook

Making Progress at the Piedmont Overlook

Posted on by Paula Combs

It’s been busy at the Overlook these past few months! PEC is in the final year of a cost-share agreement with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to improve the property’s habitat and increase its biodiversity. The mar­quee part of this grant is the creation of a 17-acre native grass and wildflower meadow on land that was formerly a pasture dominated by tall fescue.

Forty Years of Conservation

Forty Years of Conservation

Posted on by Katherine Vance

Hope Porter and Sue Scheer have been fighting to protect rural land for decades. It was in the late 1940s that Porter and her husband realized what the post-war surge in automobile ownership and long-distance commuting could mean for Fauquier County, their home—unless people stood up to protect the countryside. Together with a few likeminded neighbors, they worked to establish the county’s first zoning, when any kind of land use planning was still a rarity.

1,000 Acres of Jefferson County Preserved

Posted on by PEC

Members of the Carter family acted together in 2009 to protect nearly 1,000 acres of land in Albemarle County that has been in their family since 1730. The Carters’ ancestors were neighbors to the Jeffersons, with a plantation about seven miles from Monticello, and the 1792 home, Redlands, suggests a Jeffersonian influence. The house was built by Martin Thacker, who also built Monticello, and its plan resembles Thomas Jefferson’s unbuilt design for the Virginia governor’s mansion.