0263-GCG-FoothillsConservancy ESG23 12-13 - Flipbook - Page 4
Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina
A Message
from our Director
Protecting our region’s natural and
agricultural lands has never been more
important. With your support, we are
gaining ground!
For the last 28 years, Foothills Conservancy
of North Carolina has been working at a
regional level to permanently conserve
the lands we need and love, ensuring they
will be there for today and tomorrow. From
community parks and spaces to public
trails, mountainous landscapes, forests
and working family farms, we have been
partnering with willing landowners who
wish to permanently protect their land for
future generations.
In doing so, we are helping to address some of society’s
greatest challenges by protecting essential habitats for
plants and animals, ensuring our water runs clean and
clear and that our air is healthy to breathe, providing
access to natural areas where every person can use
green space for their general well-being, preserving
healthy soils for local agriculture and reducing the
impacts of climate change.
The year 2023 was a monumental one for FCNC, with
the public opening of our Oak Hill Community Park
and Forest near Morganton. Oak Hill Park might just
exemplify every aspect of the community-centered
bene昀椀ts we gain from land conservation. It’s a place
where everyone can enjoy a connection with nature
through the public trail system, which will expand
in the upcoming years. The forest protection and
management practices we have implemented are
making our region more resilient to climate change
impacts by absorbing and holding carbon and
providing safe havens for plants and animals. We’re
developing a community agriculture program to
foster and safeguard more land that grows our local
food. And a stream restoration project on Canoe
Creek that we’ll begin next year will rehabilitate
a natural 昀氀oodplain to help reduce downstream
昀氀ooding and protect water quality.
The projects and programs featured in this report
amplify these community-centered bene昀椀ts from
land conservation. FCNC continues its important work
by expanding a network of unbroken conservation
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