ESLC Celebrates Land Conservation Successes
The Eastern Shore Land Conservancy (ESLC) announces a successful 2012 fiscal year for land preservation, during which more than 2,250 acres were preserved from northern Kent County to southern Dorchester County, including two easements each in Dorchester, Queen Anne’s and Talbot Counties, three in Kent County, and one in Caroline County. Five of these easements were donated to ESLC.
The two easements donated by Queen Anne’s County landowners helped add to a block of contiguous preserved lands that now totals over 1,700 acres. The donated easement in Kent County helped a young farmer acquire a beautiful farm to continue the family farming tradition. In addition to preserving a 440-acre historic farm in Talbot County, ESLC partnered with the community of St. Michaels and the Maryland Environmental Trust on the preservation of a property that put to bed an immense housing development that had been looming unwanted over the community for years.
ESLC also completed five purchased easements in FY2012; two Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program easements, 2 Rural Legacy easements and one easement to preserve habitat for the federally listed, endangered Delmarva Fox squirrel. The CREP easements preserved farms in Caroline and Dorchester Counties in order to protect the water quality in the Nanticoke and Choptank watersheds. Two Kent County Rural Legacy easements added more than 370 acres to a large, contiguous area of preserved land in the Sassafras Rural Legacy focus area.
ESLC also partnered with The Nature Conservancy to purchase an easement that permanently protected a 725-acre farm in Dorchester County that is critical habitat for the Delmarva Fox Squirrel, a species listed as federally endangered. More than $2.5 million dollars were paid to local farmers and landowners to preserve forever more than 1,245 acres of farmland and forest on the mid- and Upper shore.
ESLC has been preserving farmland, forest and open space in the northern 6 counties on Maryland’s Eastern Shore since 1990. In that time we have been able to permanently preserve over 53,000 acres on over 280 properties. Much of our success is a result of intense support from the communities we serve, and we count on this support to help identify important projects and to spread the word about land preservation on the Shore.
We are currently seeking potential projects. Contact ESLC at 410-827-9756 if for more information about preservation options, or pass our information on to a neighbor or friend that might be interested.