The mission of the Oconee River Land Trust is to conserve natural lands to protect water quality, preserve wildlife habitat, and enhance the quality of our lives and those of future generation.

ORLT NEWS

ORLT CAPS 2011 WITH MAJOR ADVANCES

ORLT starts the new year having completed three additional conservation easements in 2011, protecting 1,350 acres.  This brings the total number of acres protected by ORLT to 3,477, and the number of conservation easements to 32.  The green landscapes protected by ORLT are located in 10 counties in northeast Georgia, and include working forests, wetlands, hardwood forests, riparian buffers, and agricultural lands.

Jones County conservation easement 2011

$100,000 Challenge Grant to ORLT

Thanks to the tremendous generosity of ORLT’s supporters, a 2011 Challenge Grant raised an unprecedented $98,000 for ORLT’s land conservation work.  The money raised will support the land trust’s stewardship work, its long term viability, and its immediate land conservation efforts.  We are so grateful to all those who could participate and will endeavor to build on this success so as to ensure that we can continue to save more land!

Monitoring Season

One ORLT member decided that the best way to help  ORLT (for the third year in a row!) was to financially underwrite  a monitoring intern, a key component of ORLT’s stewardship program.  This intern is responsible for  visiting each one of ORLT’s 32 conservation easements to look for natural changes and possible problems.  This year’s intern is Denise Bailey, a UGA Warnell School of Forest Resources graduate student.  Denise has experience monitoring (she was our first monitoring intern) and the skills we need.  Denise has a lot of walking a head of her, but doesn’t seem to mind the time in the woods, usually with one of her three dogs. 

More Information about ORLT
For more information about ORLT’s work , please contact Steffney Thompson at 706-552-3138 or at info@orlt.com.  Remember, with your support, ORLT will continue to steward the 3,447 acres it has already protected, and work more effectively to protect even more green space.

Oconee River Land Trust
380 Meigs Street · Athens, GA 30601
706.552.3138
oconeeriverlandtrust@gmail.com