This story has been updated to add new information and to correct an inaccuracy.
Conserving Carolina, a nonprofit land and water conservation group headquartered in Hendersonville, has bought land in Buncombe County to establish publicly accessible recreation land around a center for youth education.
The Fairview Community Forest is planned to surround the WORX Project, a campus in Fairview that provides work-based education for Western North Carolina children and teens, and will be open to the public for hiking, biking and fishing, according to an Aug. 27 Conserving Carolina news release.
“In addition to its benefits for education and recreation, the newly conserved property offers important water quality and wildlife benefits. It is located in a basin that encompasses an entire sub-watershed, with ecologically rich seeps and 1.3 miles of headwater streams. The forest also provides important bat habitat,” Conserving Carolina said in its release.
Conserving Carolina bought 226 acres of land in July to form the forest and “over 250 acres will be protected forever with conservation easements," the release says.
That includes another 27.5 acres that Conserving Carolina plans to buy soon and immediately sell to a nonprofit called Camp Grier, which operates the Fairview WORX campus as well as a summer camp, also called Camp Grier, in Old Fort, Conserving Carolina Communications and Marketing Director Rose Jenkins Lane told the Times-News in an Aug. 28 email.
Conserving Carolina group paid $775,000 for the land, which used to be a summer camp called Camp Woodson, but that's only a fraction of its market value because the Presbytery of Western North Carolina donated 67% of its value, she said.
Camp Grier will lease the 226 acres from Conserving Carolina, which expects the forest to open next year with three miles of trail ready to use for hiking and biking and more than seven miles of trails in the works.
The WORX campus was created in collaboration with Buncombe County Schools and “provides opportunities for students to gain ‘real world’ experience in construction, culinary arts, outdoor products manufacturing, agriculture, and environmental sciences,” according to its website.
It was founded in 2023 and since then has served more than 700 children aged 11 to 18 in local public schools, according to the release.
“We are excited about this unique partnership that supports public schools while offering a new place for outdoor recreation in Fairview and also protecting valuable woods and water. This project serves our community on multiple levels,” Tom Fanslow, Conserving Carolina’s land protection director, said in the Aug. 27 release.
“There’s a lot of research that backs up the benefit of doing education outdoors. Now we have this whole protected forest for students to learn in,” Sara Jerell, director of the WORX Project, said in the release.
Funding for the land purchase came from the NC Environmental Enhancement Grant Program, NC Land and Water Fund, US Forest Service Community Forest Program, Buncombe County Land Conservation Program, Fred and Alice Stanback, Conservation Trust for North Carolina, Fernandez Pave the Way Foundation, James G. K. McClure Educational and Development Fund, Hathaway Family Foundation, and the Presbytery of Western North Carolina, it said.
George Fabe Russell is the Henderson County Reporter for the Hendersonville Times-News. Tips, questions, comments? Email him at [email protected].