A Conservationist's Dream Come True: N.C. Receives Land Donation

ASHEVILLE, N.C. — Things are looking greener for North Carolina, as it is receiving what is considered to be the largest private land donation in the state’s history — just in time for Earth Day.

The Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy announced Thursday it signed a letter of intent to accept the donation of around 7,500 acres of land in the Roan Highlands. The donation comes from Tim Sweeney, CEO of video game publisher Epic Games and a conservancy member, according to The Asheville Citizen-Times.

Sweeney is known to purchase large swaths of land across western North Carolina with the intent to donate them for preservation, the paper reports. He first started working to obtain the land for this donation in 2012.

Donations like the one from Sweeney provide a window into the state's past, showing what the area looked like more than 100 years ago, according to the conservancy's executive director, Carl Silverstein. He called the gift some of the "most sought-after conservation acres in the eastern United States.

The donation is considered by Silverstein to be the "largest single gift in SAHC’s history." He added that it might even be the largest gift of land to a trust in state history.

“As we watch so much of our region get carved into subdivisions, strategic acquisition of large parcels of land is increasingly important — and increasingly hard to accomplish,” Silverstein said in a statement.

The donation is made up of separate-but-connected tracts, straddling the border between Avery and Mitchell counties, according to the conservancy. The land holding is home to many rare plant and animal species, some of which are federally protected, according to the Citizen-Times.

“This project is a conservationist’s dream come true,” Marquette Crockett, the conservancy's Roan stewardship director, said in a statement. “Pristine road-less land that has not been tim­bered over is almost impossible to find in the Southern Appalachians in 2021, but this assemblage contains so much that we value, from old growth forests to high-elevation open areas in an undisturbed condition.”