Athens Conservancy

Programs: Purchase of land and easements for preservation and public recreation. In 2017 we purchased two tracts of land and purchased easements on two others. The first tract purchased is skunk run iii. As the name implies, this is the third purchase of contiguous land to form a large preserve (skunk run). This purchase adds 34. 9 acres to the already existing preserve making the preserve a 75 acre tract. This preserve borders county land that is being developed into a rail-trail. As well as helping to preserve the views along one of the most scenic parts of the rail-trail, this preserve provides additional protection for skunk run, a high-quality stream with excellent fish diversity. The second tract purchased is the morris preserve. This preserve covers approximately 90 acres of land to be maintained in a natural state. The preserve is especially scenic and peaceful and has ravines and rock formations that need to be experienced in person to be fully appreciated. Finally, the two easements purchased will be given to the county so they can extend the rail-trail bikeway by ___ miles.

the maintenance of our preserves was a bigger percent of our expenses this year because we allocated money for the purpose of hiring people to remove non-native invasive species in a preserve which is very heavily populated with them. We hired two people to work for the summer pulling and digging the non-native invasive plants out of the ground. We also had a volunteer day where over 30 people did this work on a saturday. Maintenance also includes property taxes and insurance on the preserve land.

other activities included creating maps from gis records using our mapping software, creating a kiosk of information about the preserves and strouds run state park which borders our preserves and maintaining helpful information on our website.