The Mast General Store celebrates Land Trust Day with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy (SAHC) on Saturday, June 4th. Recognized for 14 years at Mast Store, Land Trust Day is a friend-raising event encouraging new memberships in local land trusts, as well as an educational opportunity to learn how these groups are preserving our land heritage.
The land trust movement is not new. Some land trusts have been in place for over a century. In the past five years, the amount of land protected by local and regional land trusts has more than doubled nationwide. The SAHC has protected publicly-accessible tracts in such iconic places as the Highlands of Roan, Mt. Mitchell State Park and the Black Mountains, Hickory Nut Gap, along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and adjoining the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. They particularly focus on conserving lands visible from and surrounding the Appalachian Trail in the Southern Appalachians.
Since initiating their Farmland Program in 2005, SAHC has protected thousands of acres for local food production, including land used by Hickory Nut Gap Farm, Flying Cloud Farm, Reeves Homeplace Farm, Bee Branch Farm, Second Spring Market Garden, Sparrow Hill Farm, Claxton Farm, and Sandy Mush Herb Nursery. SAHC has achieved this success by forging and maintaining long-term conservation relationships with private landowners and public agencies, owning and managing land, and encouraging healthy local communities.
Representatives from the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy will be at the Mast Stores in Asheville and Waynesville on Saturday, June 4th, to share with guests the activities they are undertaking to conserve the open spaces in the region. The Mast General Store will donate 20% of sales on that Saturday to the SAHC. Visit the website – appalachian.org – for more information on current projects and membership in the organization. To learn more about Mast Store’s other land trust partners, click on MastStore.com.