The Virginia Outdoors Foundation permanently protected 21,800 acres of farmland, forests, and other open space through 100 conservation easements in 2015. VOF now protects just under 780,000 acres across the Commonwealth. VOF protected new acreage in 49 different localities. Lunenburg County saw the most land protected with 1,844 acres. For the third consecutive year Southside…
As part of its 50th anniversary celebration in 2016, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation will be featuring a different conservation success story from its past every week on its website at vof.org/50stories. The “50 Years, 50 Stories” project combines photos, stories and maps to take visitors on a virtual tour of some of VOF’s most significant projects…
At its September 24 meeting, the VOF board of trustees voted on several policy matters affecting landowners who want to donate open-space easements in 2016. One such matter was the adoption of interim easement guidelines as VOF considers and accepts public comments for a more thorough update of its guidelines in 2016. The last update of…
To sustain the programs necessary to achieving Virginia’s land conservation goals, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Board of Trustees voted June 25, 2015 to approve a fee schedule that includes several new fees, adjustments to existing fees, and stewardship endowments for purchased conservation easements. A breakdown of the fees can be found here. Most take effect…
At its June 25 meeting in Warrenton, Va., the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s Board of Trustees voted unanimously to establish a House Mountain Committee to provide a continuing forum for community input in the management of VOF’s 876-acre House Mountain Reserve in Rockbridge County. VOF acquired the property on behalf of the Commonwealth in 1989. A…
With its museum, studio, gardens, trails, public playground, and frontage on the Lafayette River, the Hermitage Foundation has provided an opportunity for thousands of families to connect with nature in one of Virginia’s most developed regions. That opportunity is now preserved for generations to come.
Growing up, Wade Hawkins watched neighboring farms be developed throughout the 1990s. His father and grandfather tried to purchase and save some of them, but couldn’t compete with developers. Wade didn’t want his family’s farm to suffer a similar fate, so he protected the land with a VOF easement.
The Virginia Outdoors Foundation permanently protected 27,300 acres of farmland, forests, and other open space through 125 conservation easements in 2014. For the second consecutive year, the largest region for newly protected acreage was Virginia’s Southside, where VOF recorded 26 easements on about 12,000 acres, led by a 3,400-acre easement on a tract of working…
A new survey of 631 landowners who granted conservation easements to the Virginia Outdoors Foundation (VOF) since 2000 reveals that landowners are primarily managing those lands for agricultural production and/or forestry, and that they are reinvesting many of the tax credits they receive from the state back into their operations. Virginia established Land Preservation Tax…
Note: This post was updated on October 31, 2014. In response to growing public interest, the Virginia Outdoors Foundation’s scheduled November 6 Board of Trustees meeting has been relocated to Senate Room A in the General Assembly Building at Capitol Square in Richmond. Details about the meeting, including agenda and background materials, may be found here….