Preservation News

Advocates Urge House Budget Writers to Protect Forests, Farmland, and Streams

As the new home of NCPIRG's environmental work, Environment North Carolina can be contacted with any questions regarding this news release. 

RALEIGH—According to a new report, North Carolina’s Natural Heritage at Risk: How Reduced Funding for Land Acquisition Threatens Open Spaces, 57 priority protection areas, including more than 30,000 acres of open space, are at risk to development due to grim prospects for full funding of the state’s natural resource conservation programs. Today, environmental and conservation advocates urged House lawmakers to fully fund land conservation programs to preserve the state’s natural areas.

"North Carolina’s forests, farmlands, and wetlands make the state beautiful and unique," said Elizabeth Ouzts, state Director of NCPIRG and one of the authors of the report. "But this natural heritage is at risk."

North Carolina’s farmlands, green spaces, wetlands, and wild places are disappearing at the sixth-fastest rate in the nation. According to the USDA, the state’s rate of development increased 60% between 1992 and 1997.

NC’s Natural Heritage at Risk provides a snapshot of how demand for protecting the states open spaces outweighs the ability of the state’s land conservation programs to do so.

Three years ago the NC General Assembly pledged to preserve one million acres of open space by 2010. It designated the state’s four natural resource trust funds, the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, the Natural Heritage Trust Fund, and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, as the key means of achieving that goal. At the same time, the legislature passed a law requiring budget writers to dedicate $100 million to the Clean Water Management Trust Fund each year starting with the 2003/2004 fiscal year. The latest House budget allots only $40 million for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, a 60% cut.

"The natural resource trust funds for years have been a critical means of protecting forests, farmlands, and open space," said David Knight, lobbyist with the Trust for Public Land. "The House can’t keep the million acre promise if it slashes programs that fund land conservation. We need more efforts to protect open space, not less."

According to the report, some of the areas threatened with development without funding from the natural resource trust funds include:

• Sugar Creek (Mecklenburg County). The preservation of 90 acres of land around Sugar Creek in Charlotte would help complete a greenway that includes 195 acres of open space in Mecklenburg County and more than 200 in South Carolina. The land is under an intense development threat. It is a priority in the Catawba Riparian Restoration Plan because of its location on the river and because the creek is currently considered impaired under the federal Clean Water Act.

• Eno River (Orange County). Several groups are joining forces to protect this land. Clean Water Management Trust Fund dollars are essential to meet the total cost of protecting a 30-mile stretch of the Eno River. These 276 acres comprise the largest remaining tract in the Eno River State Park plan, and are part of the largest undeveloped tract in Orange County outside of Duke Forest. These acres have been named a Natural Heritage Area of Significance. Advocates urged House lawmakers to protect open spaces like these by fully funding the Clean Water Management Trust Fund in their next proposed budget, following the lead of the Senate, which proposed $100 million in their initial proposal to House. They also delivered more than 1,000 signatures to House Speakers Jim Black and Richard Morgan from citizens across the state, urging the Speakers to keep the state’s million-acre promise.

"Preserving our threatened open space is critical to protecting our air and water quality, and to keeping North Carolina the special place that it is," said Reid Wilson, Executive Director of the Conservation Trust For NC. "The legislature should fully fund the natural resource trust funds to ensure a high quality of life for generations to come."