By Karen Chávez
[email protected]
July 10, 2016

FRANKLIN – After 16 years of convincing landowners to give up development rights on their property, Sharon Fouts Taylor is putting her money – and her land – where her mouth is.

As the executive director for Mainspring Conservation Trust, Taylor’s job is to facilitate land conservation arrangements for the land trust. Recently, Taylor and her husband, George Taylor, got personal with their rallying cry and donated a conservation easement on their 70-acre Macon County property that includes the prominent, 3,000-foot-high peak of Roper Knob.

“We live on the land. My father-in-law bought the land in the mid-60s and lived there until he turned 93,” Taylor said.

“We’ve been talking about it for some time. We’re not people of great wealth, so the tax benefit would not benefit us significantly. But looking around at the development on some of the highest knobs, we wanted to make sure that when we were gone, that view of Roper Knob was always there, for people to enjoy as part of the mountain landscape.”

The lands were once known as the Bessman Harper Home Place, Taylor said. Harper, an African-American school teacher who had seven sons, lived on and farmed the land in the 1940s. Taylor said a neighbor, who is now in her 80s, remembers going to the Harper home as a young girl to read his encyclopedias.

“She told me, that’s where she got her quest for knowledge,” Taylor said.

The Taylor Family bought the land in 1966. It contains a large portion of Roper Knob, a prominent point along a short range that separates Iotla Creek Valley from the Little Tennessee River Valley to the north. The knob and its flanks are visible from many parts of the county, including the Indian Lakes Scenic Byway along N.C. 28, the Little Tennessee River, Cowee Mound, Iotla Valley, and Nantahala National Forest lands.

George Taylor, recently retired as a technician with the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, was well aware of the great biodiversity on the land and wanted to make sure the land always remained as a haven for plants and wildlife. The property includes rich cove, acidic cove, Mesic oak-hickory, pine-oak heath forests, and a white pine plantation, as well open fields managed for wildlife.

This diversity is attractive to a wide range of wildlife, including whitetail deer, black bear, coyote, bobcat, gray fox, red fox, turkey, grouse, and numerous other bird species. The Taylor property also contains more than 105 species of plants.

About 475 feet of perennial stream flows through the tract, and feeds into another first-order stream, which flows directly into the Little Tennessee River. This part of the Little Tennessee is designated as a Significant Natural Heritage Area by the N.C. Natural Heritage Program and as U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service occupied Critical Habitat for the federally endangered Appalachian elktoe mussel and the federally threatened spotfin chub.

The forested upper flanks of Roper Knob also serve as a protective watershed for many other streams that flow off the peak.

“George and I always hoped we could protect Roper Knob as part of our legacy,” said Sharon. “While I’ve had countless conversations with families as they considered and realized their dreams of conserving their own family land, it wasn’t until a few years ago that George and I started thinking seriously about the impact we could forever make.”

The Conservation Trust for North Carolina provided Mainspring a $13,800 grant to help with transaction costs of the easement. A conservation easement is a voluntary legal agreement between a landowner and a land trust or government agency that permanently limits uses of the land to protect its conservation values. Conservation easements protect land for future generations while allowing owners to retain many private property rights and to live on and use their land.

The Taylors retained the right to farm and harvest timber but gave up the right to construct other houses on the property.

As the executive director of Mainspring, Taylor said she is passionate about conserving land, but was surprised to find herself struggling with the decision to “give up” the value of the land for development.

Sharon’s family has lived in Macon County for multiple generations. George grew up in Florida, but finished school in Franklin. The couple got married right after Sharon graduated from Franklin High School, and have been married for 41 years. They do not have children, but have nieces and nephews that they took into consideration when removing the building rights from their land.

“We work with people all the time who have children. We always encourage people to consider how their children will feel as well,” Sharon said. “I believe people come here because this place is beautiful, and that beauty is part of the mountain economy.”

Mainspring Conservation Trust, which was established in 1997 and changed its name earlier this year from the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, manages 71 conservation easements totaling more than 10,100 acres. Mainspring serves seven counties: Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain in North Carolina, and Rabun County, Georgia. The land trust’s mission is to conserve and restore the lands and waters of the Southern Blue Ridge, and to connect the people to these natural treasures.

Chris Brouwer, chair of the Mainspring board of directors, said all conservation easements are important for land trusts but a land trust director’s personal easement is particularly special, much like the easements placed by Walter Clark, executive director of the Boone-based Blue Ridge Conservancy, over the past decade. Clark protected a total of 81 acres of a working blueberry farm on his land in northwest Ashe County.

“I think it’s especially telling when an executive director makes this type of commitment,” Brouwer said. “Sharon and George’s donation is tangible proof of how much they believe in Mainspring’s mission, longevity, and impact on Western North Carolina and we are forever grateful for the gift they’ve given to all of us.”

Sharon said she hopes her family’s donation will help inspire others to consider saving their land.

“I have always been grateful for the families that have made that important choice, but now I have an even deeper appreciation for their gift to all of us. We’re proud to be included with them and making a personal difference in WNC.”

Photo of Sharon and George Taylor by John MacLean.

Written by Karen Chavez of the Asheville Citizen-Times:

FRANKLIN – In a rare move, Jackson County commissioners designated a sizeable chunk of change to create new public land for people to hike, hunt and fish.

The county recently worked with Mainspring Conservation Trust to allow public access to the “Wood Heirs” property, a 308 acre tract bordered on two sides by the Nantahala National Forest. The newly conserved property will bridge those two tracts into a larger mass of accessible public property.

Mainspring, (formerly known as the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee) a Franklin-based regional nonprofit land trust serving six of Western North Carolina’s westernmost counties, was able to buy the property with a grant of $140,000 from the Jackson County commissioners, said Molly Phillips, Mainspring communications coordinator. The total cost of the tract was just over $550,000. The remainder was funded through private donations and Mainspring.

“We’re really pleased with the support Jackson County has shown,” said Dennis Desmond, stewardship coordinator for Mainspring. “It’s unprecedented in our region for county government to support projects like this. A number of the Wood heirs were also very supportive of it.”

“The commissioners believe it was in the best interest of the citizens of Jackson County to have the Wood Heirs property become part of the N.C. State Game Lands,” said Brian McMahan, chairman of the Jackson County Board of Commissioners.

“This would allow for perpetual access for recreational purposes, which is an investment in the quality of life for the residents here. We were happy to partner with an outstanding conservation organization like Mainspring to make that happen.”

Located in the community of Little Canada, near Sylva, the property is on Canada Road off N.C. 107 leading to Cashiers. The land originally belonged to H.B. Wood. When he died in 1931 without a will, the property was shared among his 11 children. The number of descendants grew to more than 100, leading to the name, “Wood Heirs” property.

“It’s gently rolling to pretty steep with some rock cliff areas. Elevations get to over 4,000 feet,” Desmond said. “The tract is mostly forested with quite a good amount of pasture land and open fields, which makes it good habitat for game species, including deer and turkey.”

The habitat should also be a boon to the golden-winged warbler, a bird listed as a federal and state species of special concern due to declining habitat, Desmond said.

The area is considered a significant natural heritage area, and has many streams, including Neddie Creek, a high-gradient stream that is considered good habitat for brook trout.

The property will be enrolled in the state’s Game Lands program to be managed by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission, who will conduct surveys to determine what wildlife and plant life it sustains. The property should be open to the public by late fall, and fulfills Mainspring’s mission, which prioritizes land conservation to forests, farms, waters and heritage, said Sharon Taylor, Mainspring executive director.

“The Wood Family has owned the property for more than 100 years and conservation honors that heritage,” Taylor said. “It also protects the quality of Neddie Creek and other tributary systems. And, because of Jackson County’s support, we are able to provide better public access to public lands. It is an excellent project and partnership.”

Mainspring’s Executive Director Sharon Taylor was featured in a piece by Stephanie Carson on Public News Service on May 2, 2016. Listen to the radio piece here, or read the transcript below.

BRASSTOWN, N.C. – Farmers’ markets are in full swing across North Carolina, with tables full of locally-sourced produce, meats and crafts. In addition to water, sunshine and sweat equity to create the bounty of crops, land also is needed to meet the demand.

That’s what North Carolina’s land trusts bring to the table.

They secure agricultural easements on farmland to protect it from development, explains Sharon Taylor, executive director for the Mainspring Conservation Trust.

“What that allows in a lot of cases is for some families to hold on to their property long-term,” says Taylor. “It also allows for it to stay available for agriculture, which is important for the greater public because then, the property is available for growing our food.”

Mainspring holds the conservation easement for Ridgefield Farm, home of Brasstown Beef.

By definition, an agricultural land easement prevents land from being used or sold for non-agricultural purposes.

Taylor says farmers who might be interested can connect with the local land trust in their area through the group Blue Ridge Forever.

Hickory Nut Gap Farm outside of Asheville is protected by an easement with the Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy.

William Hamilton, farmland program director with the conservancy, says easements are important because farmland is often just as appealing to developers as it is to farmers.

“Our river bottoms and creek bottoms and our soils that we can actually grow food on are extremely limited,” says Hamilton. “They’re also the types of properties that are very often easiest to develop, because they’re flat; they’re usually right next to an existing road.”

Taylor says in addition to protecting the land, agricultural easements protect a food supply that’s becoming even more valuable as consumers demand to “buy local.”

“Conservation and farming go hand in hand, and so it’s really important, as more and more land gets developed, that some land is available to produce the food for the future generations,” she says. “We need to keep land available for that too, and particularly good, rich farmland.”

These easements receive funding in part from the North Carolina Agricultural Development and Farmland Preservation Trust Fund, and the USDA’s Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

Stephanie Carson, Public News Service – NC