A new regional report identifying 28 places in Western North Carolina with the highest need for protection through conservation initiatives features Macon County's Little Tennessee River valley as one of its priority areas. This distinction could bring more funding for future conservation.

Asheville-based Blue Ridge Forever, a coalition of 10 local, state and regional land trusts and three national land conservation organizations, released the report, called the Blue Ridge Forever Conservation Vision.

It is the product of more than two year's collaboration among all land conservation organizations serving WNC as well as leading conservation and biological experts, agricultural specialists and cultural researchers.

The region-wide vision, which covers 25 counties, will help guide the land trust coalition in where they should invest their limited resources, with priority given to areas containing nationally or state significant ecological qualities, important wildlife habitat, high water quality, cultural and economic significance and scenic value, and working farms and forestlands.

"These are the ones that rose to the top, for their state and national significance, and these are the ones that we will be working to protect," said Valerie True, Blue Ridge Forever coalition coordinator, discussing the 28 focus areas listed in the report.

Their goals in preparing the vision are to help with general conservation, create awareness of significant places in Western North Carolina and raise funding from both individuals and state and national sources as well, added True. The idea is to protect these places before they are lost forever to development.

The Blue Ridge Forever coalition includes local partners Land Trust for the Little Tennessee and Highlands-Cashiers Land Trust.

Executive director of Land Trust for the Little Tennessee (LTLT), Paul Carlson said the coalition is "essentially the 10 WNC land trusts combining their story into one broader regional story," in order to bring greater national recognition to the uniqueness of these areas and to obtain more funding and resources for land conservation in the Blue Ridge.

LTLT serves as the lead conservation organization for two of the three largest focus areas in the Conservation Vision, the upper Little Tennessee River valley and the Hiwassee valley along the Snowbird and Unicoi Mountains.

They are also partnering with other land trusts on a third focus area in the Conservation Vision (Great Balsam and Plott Balsam Mountains), Carlson said.

Blue Ridge Forever coalition partners started meeting in 2004 to discuss how they could collaborate. LTLT has been involved since the coalition's inception.

Photo/Ralph Preston Historic Cowee Mound is part of 35 miles of Little Tennessee River frontage conserved by Land Trust for Little Tennessee in the past decade. The Mound was acquired for conservation in 2006 after the Blue Ridge Forever partnership started.

In 2006, Blue Ridge Forever established a five-year campaign of protecting 50,000 acres of land by 2010. Thus far the coalition of land trusts has protected 26,000 acres.

True said the coalition expects that with the continued support of the public and elected officials, Blue Ridge Forever will be able to meet the 50,000-acre target by the end of 2010. Carlson said he believes the partnership is well on its way to meeting this goal as well.

LTLT looks to play a major role in helping this aim of the coalition come to fruition. They will represent about a fifth, or 10,000 acres of the five-year, 50,000-acre land protection goal through their conservation efforts in the upper Little Tennessee River valley and Hiwassee River valley, according to Carson.

This number is based on the organization's average of conserving 2,000 acres per year since 2005. The acreage figure does not include the (2005) Needmore Tract purchase, which has no relation to the Blue Ridge Forever collaboration, Carlson said.

Blue Ridge Forever presented their region wide Conservation Vision for the first time Sept. 4 at the Blue Ridge Parkway Destination Center in Asheville.

Each of the high need areas identified in the report met at least three of five extensive selection criteria appearing below:

National or state significant ecological qualities.

High quality waters or a significant water supply.

Connectivity of the landscape-linking protected lands and habitats together.

Cultural and economic importance, including exceptional scenic views.

Significant tracts of working forests or farms.

The Little Tennessee River valley met all five of these criteria, according to True.

Other areas identified for protection in the report include the Upper Tuckaseegee Gorge, Chattooga Headwaters and Whiteside Mountain Area and such tourist and recreation mainstays as the Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail.

For more information on the Blue Ridge Forever Conservation Vision and background on the coalition, visit www.blueridgeforeverinfo.com.

Little Tennessee River Valley background

In Blue Ridge Forever's Conservation Vision, they state that "acre for acre, the Little Tennessee River valley has a richer combined cultural and natural history than any other area of its size in the nation."

The area is known for its aquatic biodiversity and for harboring one of the healthiest aquatic systems in the state.

More than half of the freshwater fish and mussel species in the state are found in the Little Tennessee River valley, including the federally endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel and the federally threatened spotfin chub.

Additionally, more than half of WNC's rare plants are found here.

The Cowee Community is located within the Little Tennessee valley. Cowee features the 370-acre West's Mill National Historic District, the largest registered national historical district in terms of area in western North Carolina and among the richest cultural and historically significant areas in the nation.

West's Mill district lies on the banks of the Little Tennessee River and includes 21 principal historic structures and over 40 secondary structures. Still intact at Cowee is an exceptional archeological record including histories of many cultures - Mississippian, Cherokee, African-American, and 19th - 20th century rural Appalachian.

It is home to the ancient Cowee Mound (with manmade structures dating back 1400 years), the center of the historic town of Cowee, the chief diplomatic and commercial hub of the mountain Cherokee in the 17th and 18th centuries. Famed naturalist William Bartram, recorded his visits to Cowee in 1775. The town was later destroyed during the American Revolution.

In 2007, the Eastern Band of the Cherokee Indians, in a partnership with the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, acquired the 71-acre tract that includes the Cowee Mound, as part of an effort to permanently conserve the ancient site.

Additionally, a Cowee interpretive kiosk was dedicated last year in West's Mill Historic District through a collaboration of the LTLT and the Cowee Community Development Organization.

The site features a historical marker detailing the 1400 years of human habitation and the arrival of the first European settlers to the area in the 1800s along with maps and a self-guided driving tour of the historic district.

Also in 2007, LTLT bought T.M. Rickman's General Store, one of the best known and most beloved historic buildings in the Cowee, which once served as the hub of Cowee living for decades. The goal was to preserve the structure and use the store for community-related events. A slate of cultural activities are already planned for Rickman's this fall.

LTLT is a conservation organization dedicated to conserving the waters, forests, farms and heritage of the Upper Little Tennessee and Hiwassee River valleys.

They help to preserve and protect the landscape of these valleys through rural land conservation, land stewardship and outreach and education.

Why the urgency to protect these WNC lands?

-In the last two decades Western North Carolina has lost 261,000 acres of forests, farms, stream banks and wildlife habitats to development - an area ten times the size of Asheville.

-North Carolina leads the nation in farmland loss.

-Habitat destruction threatens or endangers 93 animal species, and another 90 are on the brink of requiring protection status.

-North Carolina's population is projected to increase by 50 percent, from 8 million in 2000 to 12 million in 2030.

-Mountain property values have sharply increased in the last five years, taxing land trusts' ability to protect clean water, wildlife habitat and magnificent scenic views.