Nature Conservancy Protects 122 acres in Sandhills

Six tracts near Calloway Forest and Fort Bragg will buffer base, increase red-cockaded woodpecker habitat

SOUTHERN PINES, NC — The Nature Conservancy today announced the purchase of six tracts of land totaling 122 acres on the west side of Calloway Forest near Fort Bragg. The protected land will provide a buffer from ever-encroaching development pressure on the Army base. It will also help protect the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, which is native to the Sandhills region.

The protection efforts are part of an ongoing partnership between the Conservancy and Fort Bragg, as well as among other conservation partners in the region.

“These six tracts are important because they help connect two existing large swaths of land: Fort Bragg and the Conservancy’s Calloway Forest preserve,” says Ryan Elting, Director of the Conservancy’s Sandhills project. “We hope to eventually create a corridor that would allow the red-cockaded woodpecker and other species to migrate between the base and Calloway Forest.”

“The properties will now be protected in perpetuity, which ensures the ability to train our soldiers,” says Mike Lynch, Director of Plans, Training and Mobilization for Fort Bragg. “It is a real win-win for what we need to do as the military and what the community needs in terms of conservation and green space.”

Success can already be seen. Because of cooperation among the Conservancy, the U.S. Army and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others, the recovery of the Sandhills population of red-cockaded woodpeckers happened five years earlier than expected. This effort represented the first-ever documented recovery for the species.

“Our goal is to partner with the Army in purchasing more land around the base, which gives the woodpecker room to expand its habitat,” says Elting. “Conservation is also important for the other animals and plants native to the longleaf pine forests of the Sandhills. And, while the wildlife will benefit, so will the people who live here.”

Bobby Wright, a Hoke County Commissioner and life-long Sandhills resident, is happy about the land acquisition. He says it’s very important to have green space—like the recently opened Calloway Community Park—in his county.

“With the price of land going up, we don’t have wooded areas like we used to,” says Wright. “It’s valuable for folks to have a place to go—to have biking trails, a place to hunt and to actually see wildlife.”

The Sandhills spread across southeastern North Carolina, with canopies of longleaf pine forests supporting some of the richest natural communities in the state. Once spreading from Virginia to Texas, longleaf pine forests today cover only about four percent of their original range. The Sandhills hosts the world’s second-largest remaining population of the federally endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

The Nature Conservancy is a leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters 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.