September 2024: A Message from Our Director

Dear Wolf River Conservancy Friend,

I am writing to you from Providence, Rhode Island where our Director of Conservation, Ryan Hall, and I are attending the 2024 National Land Conservation Conference hosted by the Land Trust Alliance. More commonly known as the ‘LTA Rally’ it is a gathering of more than 2,000 conservation practitioners and professionals from around the country coming together to learn, support and grow the cause of conservation in our respective communities.  

The Land Trust Alliance is the leading accreditation body for organizations like ours. They set the standard for how a land trust should be operated and ensure that members are adhering to a strict set of operating principles. The Wolf River Conservancy has been an accredited Land Trust since 2015 and we’re preparing for our second round of accreditation in 2025.  

This week, I’m attending sessions discussing how cities are creating healthier neighborhoods through trails, strategies for advancing land protection for clean water, cultivation of watershed level collaboration towards climate resilience and much more. I am excited to learn from our peers and bring back innovative ideas that benefit our community.  

In many ways the Wolf River Watershed and its 522,000 acres is the ideal forum for the work of a land trust. The importance of the Memphis Sand Aquifer to our community’s health and well-being, the presence of a large percentage of Tennessee’s wetlands and the growing development pressure in Shelby, Fayette, Marshall and Benton Counties all give our work an urgency that we feel every day. We are proud to be the only LTA accredited land trust headquartered in West Tennessee and I am proud to represent our Mid-South community here in Rhode Island.  

If you are interested in learning more about the Land Trust Alliance please visit their website at www.landtrustalliance.org and if you’d like to support the work of the Wolf River Conservancy, please visit our website at www.wolfriver.org/give

Respectfully,

Erik Houston

Executive Director

Wolf River Conservancy  

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