From the Beginning
We began with recreational support and trail management, as it was a significant area of need with a low bar to entry for a fledgling organization like ours. In our early years, before we added field-going employees, we dug into the cooperative development of larger trail and recreation projects and we focused our efforts on helping to fund and implement them.
To see our achievements through the years, visit the Success Stories section of our website.
We also began entering cooperative cost-sharing agreements with the USFS to deliver key projects. During this time, Pisgah Project Day was established as a unifying day of partners, stakeholders, projects, and service, and we continued to build upon our working relationship with the USFS and District partners.
Working Side-by-Side toward Shared Goals
Continuing Work and Partnership
In the years since, we have continued working hand-in-hand with the USFS to:
- Accomplish a wide variety of projects
- Establish new agreements
- Increase our field-going personnel capacity to support trails, watershed stewardship and education, and invasive plant management
- Expand our base of projects to include red spruce restoration, creation of needed wildlife habitat, visitor information and education, and more
As a result of our proven track record through the years, the District has continued to trust that we can support the forest in many, often hard to quantify ways. We are grateful for the opportunity to keep building this trust by:
- Developing projects from the ground up
- Contracting out the required archaeological and biological evaluations for major projects
- Guiding major projects through the USFS compliance process
- Serving as a key partner in trail planning
- Providing guidance and training for USFS trail volunteers
- Serving as advisor to District staff
- Providing ground-truthing for projects being developed by the USFS Supervisor’s Office
- Responding side-by-side with USFS personnel in the days immediately following Hurricane Helene
