Conservation at Work
 Seventy years ago, the federal government invested in several grand conservation projects envisioned by North Carolinians including the Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Umstead State Park in Raleigh. These projects have paid huge returns – in economic development and jobs, in enjoyment for citizens and visitors alike, in protection of native plants and wildlife. In fact, these places are often the ones that come to mind when people think of North Carolina. These projects required massive federal dollars. Now, we’ve developed many other tools and partners to share the work and cost. All across North Carolina, governments and nonprofits are working to protect water quality, build trails, protect working farms and forests, create new parks and historic sites and protect land around military bases. These projects have the potential to mean as much to North Carolina as those completed seventy years ago. One of the most extraordinary things about these projects is that they almost all provide multiple benefits to a community. For example, a project may begin as a means to protect water quality, but in the end it may also provide a place for people to walk and enjoy the outdoors and for native wildlife to flourish. It may also bring income to the community through farming, forestry or tourism or by helping it attract new businesses. 
For many of these projects, one or more of the state’s conservation trust funds was the first funding partner – the one whose early encouragement and financial commitment gave those involved the courage to dream, plan and pull the project together. Promised grant funds from the state leveraged funding from other sources including federal and local governments and private donors.
North Carolina’s programs to conserve land and historic properties include: One North Carolina Naturally NC Clean Water Management Trust Fund NC Farmland Preservation Trust Fund NC Natural Heritage Trust Fund NC Park and Recreation Trust Fund The demand for funding from the state’s conservation trust funds is immense, and they are not able to meet the growing need as more and more communities develop visions about how they can make a better future by investing in their land and history. The Clean Water Management Trust Fund, for example, is now only about to fund one of every eight proposals it receives. The Farmland Preservation Trust Fund has received no funding in the last two years.
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