Mark’s Creek Area Named One of 10 Endangered American Landscapes

Family to Donate 133-acre Conservation Easement for First Mark’s Creek Protection

Mark’s Creek Rural Lands in Wake and Johnston counties was named February 24 as one of the nation’s ten most threatened scenic landscapes by Scenic America, a national organization dedicated to preserving the natural beauty and distinctive character of America’s communities and countryside.

As a step toward protecting the area, TLC also announced that that it is close to the first permanent land protection in the Mark’s Creek area, a conservation easement on 133 acres of a historic farm. The conservation agreement should be finalized between TLC and a local family within a few months.

TLC announced the impending easement at the same ceremony announcing the Last Chance Landscape designation for the Mark’s Creek Rural Lands. The ceremony took place at noon on Monday, February 24, at the Oaky Grove Church in the Mark's Creek area of Wake County.

Click here to see photos and to learn more about the threats and opportunities to protect the Mark's Creek Rural Lands.

Click here to view a printable map of the Mark's Creek Rural Lands area.

Local media, including the News & Observer (click for N&O coverage), WRAL-TV (click for WRAL coverage) and News 14 Carolina, provided excellent coverage of the announcement. More than 30 people attended the mid-day event, including friends, neighbors, elected officials, and open space activists.

Though it lies just 12 miles southeast of Raleigh, the fertile landscape of the Mark’s Creek Rural Lands retains the distinct character consistent with its 270-year-old agrarian heritage. Historic homes and farms maintain a grip on this land of fields, forests and wetlands, a land still dotted with country stores, rural churches and family cemeteries.

But development pressures are beginning to eat into the area and will become stronger with the imminent construction of the I-540 Outer Loop, the US 64 bypass around Knightdale, and the US 70 bypass around Clayton.

The conservation easement will be a positive first step toward protecting this fragile landscape, according to Kate Dixon, Executive Director of Triangle Land Conservancy.

“Wake and Johnston counties must build on that step with actions to conserve other important natural areas, wetlands, family farms and working forests in this region. Wake County’s consolidated open space plan must be implemented. Johnston County must develop and pass a strong open space plan. Subdivisions in this area must be designed with great care to minimize their aesthetic and ecological impact. And the North Carolina General Assembly must assist local preservation efforts by funding the NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund at $100 million and the Farmland Preservation Trust Fund at $2 million this fiscal year.”

“Unlike many other awards, the Last Chance Landscape designation is not an honor to receive,” Dixon said. “We’re glad that Scenic America recognized the Mark’s Creek Rural Lands, though, because it highlights the threats to one of our region’s most cherished areas and, more importantly, highlights a final opportunity to protect it. With proper planning, private generosity, and public investment, the Mark’s Creek Rural Lands can be saved.”

Each Last Chance Landscape is a place of beauty or distinctive community character chosen because it faces imminent and potentially irrevocable harm. However, each of the winners also possesses a potential solution, a “last chance” for people at the local, state and national levels to step forward and preserve its scenic beauty before it’s too late.

“Each of our Last Chance Landscapes has a story to tell,” said Scenic America’s President, Meg Maguire. “We hope that we can help write a much happier ending for all of them.”

Joining Mark's Creek Rural Lands as 2002-03 Last Chance Landscapes are:

• State Highway 99 Corridor, San Joaquin Valley, California
• Gaviota Coast, California
• Jordan River Conservation Corridor, Utah
• Creole Nature Trail National Scenic Byway, Louisiana
• Historic Towns of Concord, Lexington, Lincoln and Bedford, Massachusetts
• Schuylkill Marsh, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Middle Potomac Scenic Corridor, Maryland and Washington, D.C.
• Blue Ridge Parkway Viewshed, Roanoke County, Virginia
• Glen Mary Plantation Historic Site, Georgia

Click here to visit Scenic America's Last Chance Landscapes website.

Maguire noted that each of the ten landscapes chosen highlights a problem that may be occurring in dozens of communities across the country.

“Unfortunately, much of the natural beauty and distinctive character of America’s cities, towns and natural areas is disappearing in a sea of uncontrolled, cookie-cutter residential development and shopping malls,” Maguire said. “Haphazard growth gobbles up open space at a frightening pace. Cell towers and enormous billboards – the “litter-on-a-stick” of the American highway – puncture our scenic vistas. The threats posed to this year’s landscapes are but an illustration of what’s happening to communities all over America, every day of the year.”

Maguire emphasized that Scenic America does not seek to put an end to growth or development. “Development can be done in a way that doesn’t destroy the character or the natural beauty of a place that drew people there to begin with,” she said. Nominators for each Last Chance Landscape have outlined ways to solve that community’s problems.