Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape
-
North Carolina
-
Established 2016
About
The Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape spans nearly 11 million acres across a 33-county region in North Carolina’s Coastal Plain and Sandhills. Home to seven key military installations and ranges - Fort Liberty and Camp Mackall, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and the Dare County Range, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, and Marine Corps Air Stations Cherry Point and New River, military related activity is the second economic driver in the state. The partners of the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape have and continue to partner together to strengthen military readiness while simultaneously bolstering the economies of forests and farms, conserve natural resources that provide ecosystem services, public benefits through outdoor recreation opportunities, and increase resilience capacity in managing climate change.
Interactive Landscape Map
Total Funding by Partner
| Partner | FY2015 | FY2016 | FY2017 | FY2018 | FY2019 | FY2020 | FY2021 | FY2022 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| USDA | $6.72M | $7.63M | $9.33M | $7.39M | $11.04M | $6.88M | $10.88M | $13.44M |
| DoD | $7.90M | $6.59M | $19.64M | $4.92M | $4.20M | $5.62M | $7.00M | $1.80M |
| DOI | $1.13M | $0.13M | $1.14M | $0.63M | $0.99M | $0.0M | $0.18M | $0.0M |
| State | $2.45M | $5.85M | $4.92M | $5.25M | $3.25M | $6.78M | $22.60M | $10.10M |
| Private | $2.36M | $2.01M | $4.83M | $4.67M | $6.92M | $7.74M | $0.0M | $0.0M |
Total Acres Protected and Enrolled
| Acres Protected (Since Designation) | 202420.00 |
|---|---|
| Acres Enrolled (During FY22) | 265724.00 |
Partnership Highlights
The Intersection of Conservation and National Defense
In 2019, the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust used funds from the Department of Defense’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration Program to acquire Salters Creek Landing, a 5,400-acre parcel adjacent to MCAS Cherry Point’s Piney Island Bombing Range. This project supports national security by reducing the risk of incompatible development around MCAS Cherry Point that would compromise the installation’s electronic and special warfare training mission. According to Col. Todd Ferry, Commanding Officer at MCAS Cherry Point, "Through [the U.S. Marine Corp’s] partnership with the Coastal Land Trust and the State of North Carolina, we have shared the burden of protecting this strategic property which will help us sustain training capabilities at Piney Island for future generations.” This project also has significant ecological benefits. Located along the North Carolina coast, Salters Creek Landing is a crown jewel for conservationists. The tract is covered in estuarine marsh, tidal creeks, pocosin wetlands, and maritime forest. Year-round, the property teems with wildlife, prompting the National Audubon Society to recognize Salters Creek as an Important Bird Area and the State of North Carolina to list it as a Natural Heritage Area. Specifically, Salters Creek provides habitat to 23 rare plant and animal species, including the black rail, a candidate for the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The parcel also shares a boundary with the 15,000-acre Cedar Island National Refuge, contributing to a landscape-scale conservation corridor in one of the country’s fastest-growing regions. Moving forward, part of Salters Creek Landing will be managed as a wildlife refuge, while the remaining portion will be opened to the public for recreation.
Sentinel Landscape Partners Improve Efficiency for Land Protection
The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership unites disparate stakeholders around common goals, which often leads to innovation. In 2018, the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape partners set out to simplify the process of securing a conservation easement. Conservation easements maintain the private ownership of a property while permanently prohibiting certain types of development. In recent years, government programs have begun to split the cost of purchasing easements on properties that benefit multiple federal and state agencies. While this trend is something to be celebrated, the process can be cumbersome for private landowners. Despite sharing the cost of acquisition, government agencies typically record their easement restrictions separately, which means that property owners must consult multiple legal documents to understand their land management responsibilities. To remedy this, the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (NCDA&CS) collaborated with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS) to develop an Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape common easement template. This model consolidates agency requirements into a single deed, thus creating a more efficient process for landowners. Finalizing a conservation easement typically takes anywhere from three to four years. The NCDA&CS template is projected to cut that time in half. In 2019, NCDA&CS, the U.S. Air Force, and USDA NRCS piloted this new model by acquiring easements on five high priority parcels located beneath a flight path between Seymour Johnson Air Force Base and Dare County Range. According to Steve Troxler, North Carolina’s Agriculture Commissioner, “This project represents a new level of coordination...agriculture is North Carolina’s biggest industry followed by the military, and it is more important than ever that we work to protect the farmland that produces our food and fiber and maintains our military readiness.”
Community-Driven Landowner Engagement
Embedded in the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape is an expansive network of farms, ranches, and working forests. In total, cropland and forestland make up 72 percent of land cover across the landscape. This composition is indicative of the industry’s wider impact on the state. Agriculture and agribusiness contribute $92 billion annually to North Carolina’s GDP and employ 17 percent of the state’s workforce. Farms, ranches, and working forests also support the state’s national defense mission by reducing the risk of incompatible development around military installations and ranges. As a result, promoting sustainable management practices on North Carolina’s working lands is a top priority for Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape partners. In 2019, the NC Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation piloted a series of landowner engagement events and community leadership roundtables in five counties across the landscape. The goal of the series was to increase awareness among landowners on the government benefits available to them, educate local decision-makers on the value of the sentinel landscapes model, and seek input regarding future program development from local stakeholders. The Foundation coupled these events with a door-to-door outreach effort, which resulted in 41 letters of interest and 17 Options to Buy Contracts from private landowners.
Species Recovery Efforts Strengthen Military Readiness
In 2015, the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marine Corps partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission to establish the Red-Cockaded Woodpecker (RCW) Recovery and Sustainment Program Partnership (RASP). The partnership’s objective is to enhance training flexibility at MCB Camp Lejeune by alleviating environmental restrictions that were triggered when the RCW was listed under the ESA. To that end, the partners are helping the installation reach and maintain its recovery goal of 173 RCW clusters, as mandated by USFWS. In support of this goal, partners carry out innovative off-base restoration efforts using DoD funds that count towards the U.S. Marine Corps’ recovery obligation. Through FY 2019, RASP has protected 130 RCW clusters. . To achieve its final goal, RASP will target its resources towards preserving an additional 60 RCW clusters across two protected properties in the coastal North Carolina region—the 13,000-acre Bear Garden tract and the 3,000-acre Stones Creek Game land. RASP is representative of the Sentinel Landscapes Partnership’s mission because it increases the amount of land devoted to endangered species recovery, while simultaneously strengthening the military’s mission.
Our Partners
Federal Partners
- U.S. Air Force - Seymour Johnson AFB and Dare County Range
- U.S. Army - Fort Bragg and Camp MacKall
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Farm Service Agency (FSA)
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service and State Croatan National Forest
- U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS)
- U.S. Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)
- U.S. Department of Defense Office of Local Defense Community Cooperation (OLDCC)
- U.S. Department of Defense, Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI)
- U.S. Department of Interior, National Park Service Rivers, Trails and Conservation Assistance Program
- U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS)
- U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service (NPS)
- U.S. Marine Corps - MCB Camp Lejeune, MCAS Cherry Point, MCAS New River
- U.S. Navy, Navy Region Mid Atlantic
State Partners
- Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership
- NC College of Natural Resources - NC State University
- NC Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
- NC Department of Commerce
- NC Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
- NC Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
- NC Department of Transportation
- NC Sea Grant
- NC Wildlife Resources Commission
Private Partners
- America's Longleaf and Local Implementation Teams
- Brooks Pierce
- Cape Fear Arch Conservation Collaboration
- Conservation Finance Network
- Conservation Legacy Conservation Corps of NC
- Conservation Trust for NC
- Environmental Defense Fund
- Ft. Bragg Regional Land Use Advisory Commission (RLUAC)
- Mountains to Sea Trail
- Mt Olive University
- National Fish and Wildlife Foundation
- NC Coastal Federation
- NC Coastal Land Trust
- NC Grange
- NC Land of Water
- NC Sandhills Conservation Partnership
- NC Sandhills Prescribed Burn Association
- North Carolina Military Business Center
- Onslow Bight Conservation Forum
- South Atlantic Landscape Conservation Cooperative
- Southern Group of State Foresters
- Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention
- The Coastal Land Trust
- The Conservation Fund
- The Nature Conservancy
- Three Rivers Lands Trust
- Triangle Land Conservancy
In The News
-
Partnering for Success with Sentinel Landscapes
Federal, state and local partners, including the NC State College of Natural Resources and NC State Extension Forestry, have joined efforts to protect North Carolina’s working farmland and forests, military training grounds, and natural resources and habitat. In 2016, 33 eastern and Sandhills counties in North Carolina were designated as the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape.
Read More -
Troxler Announces Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscapes Designation
N.C. Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler announces the federal designation of 33 counties as the North Carolina Sentinel Landscape, and the development of voluntary programs as incentives for landowners and local governments that desire to participate. Troxler was joined for the announcement at the Cherry Research Farm by leaders of North Carolina’s military installations, county managers, academic institutions, representatives of conservation and environmental groups, and many other public and private partners.
Read More -
North Carolina Sentinel Landscapes—Building Capacity While Promoting Conservation and National Defense
Dewitt Hardee, the Farmland Preservation Director for the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services manages the NC Agricultural Development & Farmland Preservation Trust Fund. Dewitt introduces the North Carolina Sentinel Landscape, a land preservation program focused on conserving working and rural lands and promoting national defense.
Read More -
33 North Carolina Counties Designated as the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape
The latest designation from a joint federal partnership between the U.S. departments of Agriculture, Interior and Defense that aims to strengthen farms, ranches and forests while conserving habitat and natural resources and protecting vital training grounds for military installations.
Read More -
Marines and Woodpeckers Share the High Ground
At Camp Lejeune, an endangered species thrives amidst simulated battles. Above the distant din of 50-caliber machine gun fire and Cobra attack helicopters, John Hammond, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, hears the unmistakable sound of a red-cockaded woodpecker as he approaches Combat Town, where U.S. Marines routinely assault a mock Iraqi village at Camp Lejeune.
Read More -
Three Rivers Land Trust (TRLT) Conserves Land Near Fort Bragg
Thanks to a partnership between the U.S. Army and Three Rivers Land Trust, a 92-acre parcel has been permanently conserved at Fort Liberty and will remain undeveloped in perpetuity. Click below to read more.
Read More
Resources
-
2023 Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape Profile
-
Conserving Working Lands: A Land Legacy Workbook with Tools and Resources to Guide Your Conservation Planning
-
Establishing a Partnership for Sentinel Landscapes: The North Carolina Experience, a Dissemination Guide for Other States
Meet the Coordinator
Chris Baillie
Chris Baillie is the Resilience/Climate Adaptation Coordinator for the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape (ENCSL), a three year pilot position to evaluate the benefits of Landscapes having a second coordinator to focus on projects addressing resilience and climate adaptation. In this role, Chris will be leading a broad group of stakeholders in the development of a Strategic Resilience/Climate Adaptation Plan for the ENCSL while concurrently facilitating the development of proposals to support resilience-focused projects within the Landscape. Chris is originally from Durham, NC, and holds a Ph.D. in Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology from Northeastern University and a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. With expertise in habitat conservation and restoration, ecosystem service quantification, and coupled human-natural system management, Chris has extensive experience translating applied research and stakeholder engagement into actionable State-level plans. Outside of work, Chris is an outdoors enthusiast.
“North Carolina supports a large military presence, including Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Stations New River and Cherry Point. … Private lands enable essential military training opportunities that are important in protecting the military’s mission. Partnerships like these facilitate agreements with private landowners that may allow mutually beneficial and compatible uses, thus further enabling our ability to conduct realistic training in preparation to go into harm’s way – and win. Marine Corps Installations East is proud and honored to be a part of programs that synchronize federal, state, and local interests, conservation, and our training requirements.”