A view from a rocky outcrop across rolling forested hills in spring.

Box Creek Wilderness Land Preservation

Unique Places To Save Provided Online Technology to Help Prevent a Power Line Over One of the Largest Natural Heritage Areas in North Carolina

Unique Places To Save conducted an online outreach and education campaign in coordination with our valued partner, Unique Places LLC, to help educate the public about the re-routing of a high-voltage power line that was proposed by Rutherford Electric Membership Corporation to run through the 7,000 acre Box Creek Wilderness Natural Heritage area in western North Carolina. From our online and technological efforts, we garnered nearly 2,000 signatures in support of our efforts to stop the high voltage power line.

If developed as first proposed by the power company, the power line would have destroyed more than two miles of intact and exceptionally-diverse forest, and would have significant fragmentation in an important wildlife corridor between the South Mountains and Blue Ridge Escarpment (the award-winning South Mountains to Blue Ridge Corridor Map Atlas was completed by Unique Places GIS & Design).

 

A slow stream winds through an open wetland meadow lined with cattails and shrubs, with a band of trees on the horizon under a golden evening sky.

Michael Scisco, September 2026

What Happens After a Mitigation Bank is Complete?

Regulatory closeout is a major milestone for a mitigation bank. It confirms that the required restoration or enhancement work has been completed, performance standards have been met, and the formal monitoring and maintenance period can end....

Pink survey flagging tied to shrubs along a marsh-lined creek on the Point Farm conservation easement, with a weathered stump standing in the still water.

Mandi Taylor, September 2026

The Impossibility of Capturing Nature in a PDF

Every profession has the gap between what the job looks like on paper and what actually happens on the ground. In land conservation, that divide can be neatly summarized by one specific, legal document: the Baseline Documentation Report (BD...

Mandi Taylor smiling beside a tree in bare winter woods, wearing a cap and a daypack, with pine needles covering the slope behind her.

Mandi Taylor, September 2026

Behind the Scenes of Land Stewardship

When people think of land conservation wins, they usually picture all the work and coordination required to place land with rich ecological, historical, or cultural value into a conservation easement. And they are right to celebrate those e...

A shallow rocky river running through summer woodland.

Sam Warnock, August 2026

The River That Built a Town: Ramseur’s Past Shapes Future Conservation (Part Two)

This is the second installment in a two-part series on the Deep River restoration project in Ramseur, North Carolina. For this series, I sat down with Mayor Hampton Spivey and Town Clerk Carol Akers to hear how growing up alongside the Deep...