Saving Maritime Forests Tract by Tract 



We abuse land because 

 we regard it as a commodity 

 belonging to us. 

 When we see land as a 

 community to which we belong, 

 we may begin to use it 

 with love and respect. 

 - A Sand County Almanac 



By Jeannie Faris 



Naturalist Aldo Leopold penned 

 these words 45 years ago, and they're 

 a guiding principle for conservation- 

 ists even today. But somehow the 

 message has been muted by the de- 

 mand for land, especially when valu- 

 able coastal real estate is at stake. 



Witness North Carolina's shrink- 

 ing maritime forests. Sanctuaries for 

 migratory birds, they grow on the 

 coastline and barrier islands, thick 

 with twisted live oaks, red cedars and 

 loblolly pines, woven with sinewy 

 vines and skirted by green under- 

 brush. 



Without question, people love 

 these forests, even to the point of thin- 

 ning them out and building in them. 

 They have become a commodity. And 

 as their value is measured by the pos- 

 sibilities for construction — the view 

 — the plant and animal life they sup- 

 port is destroyed. 



Historically, little has shielded 

 maritime forests from the bulldozer 

 other than the landowner's preference 

 for dense cover or an on-site wetland 

 that was eligible for protection. 



But that was before a 1988 inven- 

 tory showed that by the turn of the 

 century, all privately owned maritime 

 forests in North Carolina would be 

 cleared, pruned or developed. The 

 window of opportunity was about to 



slam shut. The only remaining stands 

 would be locked into protected pre- 

 serves, owned by the government and 

 conservation groups. 



State regulators took notice. 



Today, the outlook is improved. 

 The state has rallied local govern- 

 ments to protect their own maritime 



Scott D. Taylor 



little has shielded maritime 

 forests from the bulldozer 

 other than the landowner's 

 preference for dense cover or 

 an on-site wetland that was 

 eligible for protection. 



forests. Local ordinances, though sub- 

 ject to the winds of political change, 

 can be honed as more effective protec- 

 tion tools than sweeping state regula- 

 tions, says Mike Lopazanski, coastal 

 program analyst for the N.C. Division 

 of Coastal Management (DCM). 



"Local ordinances have been get- 

 ting better all the time," he says. 

 "People have recognized that these 



forests are important." 



Still, ordinances can only manage 

 — not stop — development on pri- 

 vately owned lots. The best recourse is 

 to buy the remnants, protecting the 

 unusual barrier island habitat. Conser- 

 vationists say the maritime forests are 

 worth the effort. But not all agree 

 they're worth the price. Because the 

 forest sites are in such high demand, 

 they command prices that the govern- 

 ment and conservation groups are 

 hard-pressed to pay. 



Buxton Woods is a good example. 

 The price of saving 700 acres there 

 was $4.9 million in state and federal 

 dollars. Close to half of that land was 

 bought in the last two years, and more 

 purchases are expected. 



Even costlier is the maritime for- 

 est on Bald Head Island, where a 

 128-acre site recently cost $2.4 mil- 

 lion. The Nature Conservancy North 

 Carolina Chapter arranged the pur- 

 chase and is negotiating a second 

 phase of 70 to 90 acres. 



"You literally almost have to buy 

 land by the square foot rather than by 

 the acre," says Fred Annand, associate 

 director of The Nature Conservancy 

 North Carolina Chapter. 



So conservation groups snap up 

 scraps of these woods through dona- 

 tions, grants, conservation easements 

 and bargain sales. In the case of the 

 Bald Head Woods purchase, money 

 was raised through a $4 million grant 

 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- 

 vice, a $1 million land donation and 

 $325,000 from the Recreation and 

 Natural Heritage Trust Fund, which 

 receives proceeds from the sale of per- 

 sonalized license plates. About $2.9 

 million remains for future purchases. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 3 



