August 2024: A Message from Our Director

Dear Wolf River Conservancy Friend,

Earlier this month, I was invited to speak at the Governor’s Commission on Conservation in Nashville. Hosted by Governor Bill Lee, conservation leaders from across the state convened to discuss important issues and learn about the work of our peers. We also had the opportunity to provide feedback to the administration on several important topics like wetlands protection and the need to fund conservation projects in threatened and vulnerable areas.  

I had the honor to share the Conservancy’s work ranking the top 10,000 ecologically valuable parcels of land in the Wolf River watershed and detailed our efforts to systematically preserve or protect them through real estate. Using GIS software, our Director of Conservation, Ryan Hall, has prioritized these lands based on several conservation factors such as stream order, wetlands and water bodies, aquifer recharge, species richness and resiliency data among others. Leveraging this proprietary data has allowed us to effectively identify and work directly with landowners and developers to purchase property outright or place conservation easements held by the Wolf River Conservancy in perpetuity. This scientific approach has realized incredible success as the Wolf River Conservancy has protected more than 20,000 acres to date.  

As the only accredited land trust headquartered in West Tennessee, I was grateful for the opportunity to share the impact of our work here in the Mid-South as well as the methodology that puts our mission into practice. It is incredibly important for the political leadership in Tennessee to hear perspectives from non-governmental organizations like the Wolf River Conservancy and I applaud TDEC, TWRA, and the Lee administration for creating a forum for diverse conservation voices to be heard.  

If you are interested in learning more about our conservation work or would like to support our efforts to preserve and protect land in the Wolf River Watershed, please visit our website or reach out directly!  

Sincerely,  
Erik Houston
Executive Director