The Nature Conservancy Hires New Southern Blue Ridge Project Director

DURHAM, NC — March 6, 2007—

David Ray is the Conservancy's new Southern Blue Ridge Project Director

The Nature Conservancy has hired David Ray as the new Southern Blue Ridge Project Director in its Saluda, NC office. Ray brings nearly five years of land conservation experience to the position, and also practiced law for six years. His work at the Conservancy will extend through most of western North Carolina’s mountains, focusing particularly on Hickory Nut Gorge and the cross-boundary partnership with the Conservancy's South Carolina Chapter along the Southern Blue Ridge Escarpment.

As the Southern Blue Ridge Project Director, Ray will be responsible for coordinating the Saluda office’s work on land and conservation easement acquisition, conservation action planning, and land stewardship. He will work closely with landowners, natural resource professionals, government officials and conservation groups toward the protection of the region’s most imperiled plants, animals, and natural areas.

At the Southern Blue Ridge Escarpment, the Blue Ridge Mountains rise dramatically from the rolling hills of the piedmont to nearly 4,000 feet above sea level. The Escarpment stretches from southeast of Asheville in North Carolina, westward to the Chattooga watershed in Georgia.

The Southern Appalachian Mountains blanket the western third of North Carolina, part of a chain of ancient peaks and valleys stretching more than 1,500 miles from Canada to central Alabama. The Nature Conservancy has worked to protect the tremendous natural diversity of the Southern Appalachians in North Carolina for more than 30 years, and some of the Conservancy’s most important current projects can be found here.

The North Carolina Chapter of The Nature Conservancy and its 25,000 members have protected more than 670,000 acres in the Tar Heel state. Its mission is to preserve plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. For more information, visit nature.org/northcarolina.

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The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org.