Triangle Land Conservancy

Tlc continues to make headway towards meeting the goals for 2025 laid out in our strategic action plan, even as it is getting harder. Land is getting more expensive and disappearing faster, fewer landowners are able or willing to donate even a small part of the value of their property, and the impact of climate change and related weather events is being felt across the region. In fy22 tlc increased capacity by hiring more staff.working with individual, corporate and foundation donors, and local and state governments, in fy22 we protected over 1,200 acres, built more trails, engaged more people, and monitored thousands of acres. (continued on schedule o)tlc will continue prioritizing the most critical lands for conservation. We will seek new and creative ways to keep up the pace of conservation, from implementing the buy-conserve-sell model to protect disappearing farmland to inspiring private donations to leverage government funds for Land protection. Conservation strategies: in fy22, tlc protected 1,290 acres of priority conservation Land, bringing our grand total to 22,734 acres. Tlc stewards over 78 properties and has 9,498 acres protected by 168 conservation easements. Each of these conservation properties support at least two of the four benefits that tlc prioritizes: safeguarding clean water, local farms and foods, natural habitat, and connecting people with nature. Conservation easements are legal agreements between a landowner and a Land trust that limit uses of the Land in order to protect its conservation values in perpetuity. Specific terms of individual easements vary, but in general they limit future development. Of the 1,290 acres protected this year, 42 were farmland, and 485 are state-identified natural heritage sites. One of the sites, rattlesnake range, is now 76 acres of protected habitat for the increasingly rare rattlesnakes found in the piedmont. In fy22, tlc worked to safeguard clean water by protecting 1,165 acres, including 18 projects in the cape fear and upper neuse river watersheds. These protected acres include 18 miles of stream, for a total of nearly 165 miles of stream that tlc has conserved since 1983. The purchase of 665 acres Land along the cape fear river supports our water quality efforts and completes an 8,000-acre conservation corridor in north carolina's largest river basin. Tlc has also redoubled our efforts to ensure outdoor spaces are accessible to everyone in the Triangle. This goal cannot become reality without actively working to end systemic racism, which for centuries has led to inequities in ownership of, access to, and enjoyment of the outdoors. As part of this work, in fy22 we launched the good ground initiative, which aims to both protect local farms and increase Land ownership by black, indigenous and other people of color, using the buy-conserve-sell method. The first good ground initiative property will be offered in fy23.

Community engagement: our community of 329 volunteers contributed 3,066 hours which helped tlc reach our goal to conserve wild and working lands and engage more people outdoors. Volunteers completed office tasks, taught environmental education programs, led hikes, and supported stewardship efforts. Tlc held 67 virtual and in-person events in fy22, engaging 1,965 people. Forty-three of these events (65%) were made possible by our volunteers. Tlc has implemented a trail-guide training program, and we now rely on 63 volunteer hike leaders. Tlc has a goal to expand our audience and celebrate conservation for everyone something that would not be possible without our partners. We collaborated in 67 unique community partnerships (cont. On sched. O) in fy 22, and participation in tlc events grew by 144% from last year. One of these new partnerships, with the raleigh astronomy club, has resulted in a series titled "first fridays under the stars" which draw hundreds outside each month (as weather allows). Communications: in 2022 tlc hired a new communications team and have begun to update and expand our communications efforts, including adding spanish segments to our blog and website. We updated kiosk and pedestal signage at brumley and williamson nature preserves, and we are developing new signage for johnston mill nature preserve. Twice a year, around 4,000 households receive the printed version of tlc's confluence newsletter, and over 8,700 email subscribers receive our monthly e-newsletters, meander and hike & play. Tlc's brand recognition on social media grew in 2022, as the number of followers across social channels increased from 17,000 to 20,000. Most of our audience is on facebook and instagram, which have 12,000 and 4,957, respectively, with over 1,500 on twitter. The average age of our social media audience ranges from 25 - 44 years old, with the largest age group between 25 34 years old. Almost 26% identify as black, indigenous, and other people of color and 75% access using mobile phones. Our website sees monthly average traffic of 22.7k visitors, and is 51.17% male and 48.83%, female. 77% access the tlc website via tablets and smartphones. Over 40% of our monthly website visitors navigate to our website directly by clicking a link from our social media posts, from emails or by searching online entering related keywords such as: hiking, biking, trails for walking. Other website traffic comes from people who saw and clicked on a tlc ad found on google or meta's audience network (facebook, instagram).

Stewardship: tlc's stewardship responsibilities continued to increase in fy22: currently tlc holds 168 conservation easements on 9,498 acres and owns over 7,500 acres of Land. As an accredited Land trust, all 17,057 acres must be monitored, managed, and cared for by stewardship staff annually to ensure that the easement terms are not violated.this fy, tlc opened 7.6 miles of new hiking and mountain biking trails; 4 miles at williamson preserve, and 3.6 miles at brumley preserve. In total tlc provides more than 60 miles of trail at our public nature preserves which thousands of people enjoy every month. In fy22, brumley and williamson preserves continued to see increased usage, averaging 3,500 and 2,200 visitors per month, respectively. (cont. On sched. O)tlc continued implementation of the farm plan at williamson preserve and now hosts 5 farm partners, who use regenerative agriculture techniques to support an apiary, perennial and annual crops, livestock, and a native tree nursery. Tlc also conducted a prescribed burn as part of our shortleaf pine regeneration project at horton grove preserve and has engaged in invasive species removal across our preserves. With an increasing number of easements held, tlc has enlisted and trained volunteers to monitor many easements. After completing a training program, volunteers use a monitoring and mapping app and go on at least one monitoring visit with a tlc staff member before being eligible to monitor easements on their own. In fy22, volunteers spent 157 hours monitoring 41 conservation easements.