Shenandoah Valley Conservancy, the former Valley Conservation Council, reported on its busy 2024, in which the nonprofit land trust was able to permanently protect an additional 1,700 acres of land in the Valley and Alleghany Highlands.
“By teaming up with landowners, we’re having a significant impact on landscapes all over the Shenandoah Valley. People throughout the region have now privately conserved more than 220,000 acres, an area larger than Shenandoah National Park, with more than 845 miles of rivers and streams,” says Peter Hujik, executive director at Shenandoah Valley Conservancy, which was founded in 1990.
“While local land protection efforts have a significant impact on our viewsheds, biodiversity, agriculture and way of life here locally, their conservation significance on a broader, national scale should not be overlooked,” Hujik said.
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The 1,700 acres protected in 2024 came from the securing of 11 conservation easements in seven counties in the Shenandoah Valley and adjacent Alleghany Highlands.
These properties encompass significant wildlife habitat, productive farms and working forests, including:
- 59 acres on the top of Poorhouse Mountain visible from Lexington
- Devil’s Backbone, the iconic ridge in the Blue Grass Valley near Monterey
- Almost one mile along the Jackson River and its namesake public trail.
The Conservancy also collaborated with the Alliance for the Shenandoah Valley and the City of Harrisonburg to develop a public trail around Silver Lake, a 10-acre spring-fed lake near Dayton.
Another project protected an additional 880 acres in the Middlebrook-Brownsburg Corridor between Staunton and Lexington, where residents have conserved more than 30,000 acres of working farms, forests and historic sites.
Three additional properties were conserved in the Page Valley that bolster a 1,700-acre wildlife corridor of privately conserved lands connecting Shenandoah National Park with George Washington and Jefferson National Forests.
The Conservancy has 40 additional easements already in progress for 2025 and anticipates protecting hundreds more acres.
The organization received a major contribution to create an additional land protection staff position in 2025 to keep up with the growing demand for conservation.
One final item of note: the Conservancy was re-accredited in 2024 by the Land Trust Accreditation Commission. The Commission makes the award to land trusts meeting the highest national standards for excellence and conservation permanence.
Each accredited land trust completes a rigorous review process and joins a network of organizations united by strong ethical practices, including demonstrated fiscal accountability, strong organizational leadership, sound transactions and lasting stewardship of the lands they conserve.
“We are proud to be recognized once again for the high standards we maintain for conservation as we celebrate 35 years of land protection,” said Steuart Thomas, the chair of the Conservancy’s board of directors. “On the heels of a very successful year of land protection, we are confident in our ability to rise to the challenge of continuing to protect the Valley as it rises in global conservation significance. We are grateful for our many supporters who trust us as stewards of the Valley.”
“We have important work ahead of us,” said Hujik. “We are excited to see our momentum continue to grow and take solace in the fact it will enable us to conserve the Shenandoah Valley at a truly meaningful scale.”
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Chris Graham
