
	Triangle Land Conservancy 1101 Haynes Street Suite 205 Raleigh, NC 27604 919.833.3662

Working Lands Initiative Reaps $100,000 Grant

Project focuses on Chatham farms, forests beginning January 2005

Triangle Land Conservancy has been awarded a $100,000, three-year grant to help establish a Working Lands Initiative in Chatham County. The project will focus on increasing farmland and forestland protection in the rapidly growing county.

The initiative is funded by the SOUL (Save Our Undeveloped Land) Fund of the Triangle Community Foundation.

Chatham is one of the fastest growing counties in North Carolina and the nation. With a growth rate from 2000 to 2003 of 12 percent, Chatham trailed only three other North Carolina counties (and matched a fourth, Johnston Co., where TLC also works).

“We appreciate the foresight and generosity of the SOUL Fund in helping us create the Working Lands Initiative, and the assistance of Triangle Community Foundation in pairing this donor with us,” said TLC Executive Director Kevin Brice. “This initiative will provide a huge boost to our efforts to help Chatham farmers and forestland owners keep their lands in production.”

The Working Lands Initiative will be a permanent, long-term part of TLC’s priority conservation work in Chatham County, not a short-term fix to the county’s rapid growth. Key components will include planning and outreach, farmland preservation funding research and cultivation of conservation partnerships. The initiative could provide a model for similar programs in other counties.

Tandy Jones of the TLC conservation staff will head up the Working Lands Initiative. Jones knows the challenges confronting Chatham farmers and forestland owners first-hand. From 1983 to 2004 he was a full-time farmer in northern Chatham, raising cattle on 250 acres. He is a member of the Chatham County Livestock Association and has continued to raise cattle on a part-time basis since joining the TLC staff in June 2004.

“A major impediment to working lands conservation is lack of funding for purchase of development rights,” Jones said. “We will be looking for existing sources and trying to develop new ones.”

Jones anticipates developing partnerships with a wide variety of groups and agencies working in Chatham County. Those could include farmers’ organizations like the Chatham Agribusiness Council and Chatham County Livestock Association, farm service agencies like the Cooperative Extension and Natural Resource Conservation Service, and other conservation groups like Haw River Assembly and Piedmont Land Conservancy.

Since 1983, TLC has helped to conserve 3,479 acres in Chatham County. These include conservation agreements with five owners of farmland and forestland conserving 956 acres; ownership of 1,500 acres on eight properties; and conservation partnership on two projects that have conserved 1,023 acres.

As the Working Lands Initiative develops in the coming months, more information will be available here on the TLC Web site. If you have questions about the Working Lands Initiative, please contact Tandy Jones at (919) 833-3662 ext. 107 or by e-mail.