WHAT WE DO

The Conservancy currently protects over 3,000 acres of land in the James and York Rivers watersheds. We measure our success by the total acreage of land protected in our region. That’s why the Conservancy works in partnership and collaboration with other land protection organizations and programs to ensure land owners use the best conservation tool to protect their land.

Some of our recent efforts include:

• Holding Conservation Conversations, educational receptions for landowners about placing conservation easements on their property, provided quality time for us to meet with people interested in protecting their land.

• Developing ideas and identifying key areas for land protection to help provide substantive input for the rewrite of the James City County Comprehensive Plan.

• Hosting Conservation Connections, educational receptions about who the Conservancy is and what we do, provided the chance to meet with over 100 people and brought in new members and support.

• Presenting Celebrating Conservancy Awards to 19 schools in the Historic Triangle to recognize their conservation efforts and to make hundreds of students honorary members of the Conservancy.

• Walk and Talk, exploring nature along Greensprings Trail, was held for the fourth year and provided adults and children with an education about the geography, archeology, birds and flora and fauna along the conservation easement protected trail.

• Presentations to a wide range of community organizations, including the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s Green Breakfast, Thomas Nelson Community College Workforce Development, and the Williamsburg Council of Garden Clubs.

• The results of the Historic Triangle Corridor Enhancement Committee’s work could be seen up and down Jamestown Road.  

• Church on the Main, our permanently protected historic church site, was formally dedicated and is now an interpretative site that can be accessed off a trail spur of the Greensprings Trail. Further, the Sons of the American Revolution placed and dedicated a stone memorial on the site in recognition of American soldiers who lost their lives in the Battle of Greensprings.  Plus, the actual church location has been marked in brick, thanks to the generosity and commitment of time by a Conservancy supporter.     

• Land protection efforts were maximized by working in partnership with a variety of organizations, including: The Nature Conservancy; Virginia Outdoors Foundation; Capital Region Land Conservancy; Trust for Public Land; and The Audubon Society.

• A mapping project to identify the conservation values of the land in the James and York River watersheds was launched.

• The first-ever Conservancy golf tournament, the Conservancy Challenge, was successful in raising $28,000 for land protection and stewardship.