Conservation Notes from the Field

Stewardship is an opportunity to connect with landowners: both meeting newcomers as land turns over to new ownership and reconnecting with longtime landowners. When a landowner puts a conservation easement on a property, they tend to know the provisions of the easement well. When a new landowner purchases a property under easement, there is an opportunity to meet with them and introduce them to land conservation. I had that opportunity several times in 2025.

With eighty-five easements and 15,378 acres under conservation easement, our annual stewardship responsibilities are always a significant undertaking. As an accredited land trust, we are required to monitor every conservation easement and fee simple (HVLC-owned) property at least once per year. 

This task of annual monitoring has expanded as our land portfolio and service area have grown. Luckily, technology has advanced as well. In addition to in-person site visits, we are now able to use high-resolution satellite imagery to visualize our conservation easements in detail from a computer. This has proven particularly useful for our larger, remote, and wet properties. After all, it is difficult to lay eyes on an entire 1,000-acre property or a swamp with thick vegetation and even thicker mud! With funding support from the Virginia Outdoors Foundation and the Virginia United Land Trusts, we have been able to use satellite imagery to supplement our stewardship monitoring.

With the new calendar year starting, the cycle of stewardship begins again on January 1st. I look forward to seeing some of you in the field!