The Mast General Store celebrates Land Trust Day with the Southern
Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (SAHC) on Saturday, June 4th. Recognized for
14 years at Mast Store, Land Trust Day is a friend-raising event encouraging
new memberships in local land trusts, as well as an educational opportunity to
learn how these groups are preserving our land heritage.
The land trust movement is
not new. Some land trusts have been in place for over a century. In the past
five years, the amount of land protected by local and regional land trusts has
more than doubled nationwide. The SAHC has protected publicly-accessible tracts
in such iconic places as the Highlands of Roan, Mt. Mitchell State Park and the
Black Mountains, Hickory Nut Gap, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and adjoining
the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They particularly focus on conserving
lands visible from and surrounding the Appalachian Trail in the Southern
Appalachians.
Since initiating their
Farmland Program in 2005, SAHC has protected thousands of acres for local food
production, including land used by Hickory Nut Gap Farm, Flying Cloud Farm,
Reeves Homeplace Farm, Bee Branch Farm, Second Spring Market Garden, Sparrow
Hill Farm, Claxton Farm, and Sandy Mush Herb Nursery. SAHC has achieved this
success by forging and maintaining long-term conservation relationships with
private landowners and public agencies, owning and managing land, and
encouraging healthy local communities.
Representatives from the
Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy will be at the Mast Stores in
Asheville and Waynesville on Saturday, June 4th, to share with guests the
activities they are undertaking to conserve the open spaces in the region. The
Mast General Store will donate 20% of sales on that Saturday to the SAHC. Visit
the website - appalachian.org - for more information on current projects and
membership in the organization. To learn more about Mast Store's other land
trust partners, click on MastStore.com.
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