By Monica Thornton, Executive Director
Nature is a precious thing. It encompasses far more than any one of us can hold in our mind at any one time. It’s the trees we drive past on our way to work, the water that comes out of our faucets, the birds that wake us up in the morning, and countless other plants, animals, rivers, mountains, and seas that allow us to live, eat, and breathe every single day.
These resources are much easier to consume than they are to preserve and propagate, which is why all of us at The Nature Conservancy have laid out an ambitious agenda to make it possible for future generations of Georgians to have access to the same resources we have been blessed with.
After more than 50 years of preserving Georgia’s lands and waters across the state, we have begun construction this year of two new headquarters to better protect and restore two of our most critical landscapes. The first will be in the Chattahoochee Fall Line, an area in Southwest Georgia in which we have already planted more than 425,000 trees and actively manage 35,000 acres of land.
With this new HQ, we will add new resources and capacity, allowing us to expand our efforts to a goal of protecting and restoring 35,000 more acres of forest which is home to rare gopher tortoises and red-cockaded woodpeckers; unusual pitcher plants and wild orchids; and rivers, shoals and forests which support diverse plant and animal populations.
Just 50 miles outside of Atlanta, the second of our two new facilities will be in the Dugdown Corridor, which represents one of the most significant opportunities to restore the imperiled longleaf pine ecosystem. We are putting down deeper roots in the area to protect this 100,000-acre corridor in the southern Appalachians to enable greater protection, management and restoration of unique terrestrial and aquatic habitats in an area threatened by intensive timber management practices and growing development pressures.
The opening of these new facilities represents a historic expansion of our work in ecosystems that are critical to the future of conservation not just in Georgia, but throughout the region.
There are daunting challenges ahead of us, which is why we are launching into this new phase of work alongside many partners who make it possible. We are working with state and federal agencies, educational institutions, and other non-profits to maximize our impact and expand our reach.
This is especially important as Georgia continues to rapidly develop, which is why we have created tools such as the Low Impact Solar Siting Tool (LISST) to help mitigate the environmental impact of new solar energy facilities which Georgia has become known for. In fact, Georgia is a national leader in the clean energy revolution, ranking 7th in the country for installed solar capacity with enough energy to power more than 650,000 homes. Using our tool and a set of recommended practices that we developed with partners, developers of large-scale solar facilities will be better equipped to provide the clean energy our state needs, while minimizing impacts on critical habitats.
Land use decisions pose challenges on other fronts as well, including at Georgia’s renowned Okefenokee Swamp, where proposed mining threatens to irreversibly damage a delicate ecosystem which has stood the test of time for hundreds of thousands of years. The Okefenokee sustains not just unique animal and plant species, but also Georgia communities, families, and businesses. Mining operations that would threaten the sustainability of this valuable resource are simply not worth the risk they pose. This is why we oppose mining at the Okefenokee. We welcome the National Park Service’s recognition of this natural treasure in its plan to nominate the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We join our many conservation partners in calling on the Georgia legislature to pass the bipartisan Okefenokee Protection Act (HB 71) this year to ensure that the Okefenokee we cherish will be there for generations to come.
These initiatives only begin to scratch at the surface of what we aim to achieve in the near future. While there is much work to be done, I am hopeful not just because of the progress we have already made, but the passion I have personally felt from peer organizations, donors, and colleagues.
Together, there is nothing that we cannot achieve.
