Cover photo by Daniel White
Protecting Albemarle’s Land, Water, and Wildlife
From the Blue Ridge Mountains and the edge of Shenandoah National Park to the Rivanna River watershed, Albemarle County contains plenty of natural wonder and is home to many outdoor enthusiasts. So it’s no surprise that the region also hosts more than its share of environmental protection groups, from local
clean-up efforts to national environmental nonprofits.
Meet three such groups in the following pages—the Virginia Nature Conservancy, the Southern Environmental Law Center, and the Rivanna Conservation Alliance— to learn a bit about what each does and hopes to do.
And though there are too many to list, the region additionally hosts many other organizations dedicated to the outdoors and environmental preservation, including Appalachian Voices, a group established in 1997 to protect the land, air and water of central and southern Appalachia; and Clean Virginia, a Charlottesville-headquartered organization
founded by Michael Bills in 2018 to advocate for renewable energy at
the state level.
Other organizations are engaged in local work as well, such as the Ivy Creek Foundation, which has been working since the 1970s to preserve and steward the Ivy Creek Natural Area, a 219-acre preserve near the South Fork Rivanna Reservoir; or the Piedmont Environmental Council, which has an office in Charlottesville and supports environmental work across central Virginia.
Still others work with a wider geographic scope, such as the Shenandoah National Park Trust, which raises money for and supports the nearby Shenandoah National Park, one of the world’s most famous outdoor spaces.
The Virginia Nature Conservancy
Headquartered in Charlottesville,
the Virginia Nature Conservancy is one of the national organization’s oldest and most well-established chapters. The group preserves endangered natural environments, often working with landowners, state and local governments, and others to acquire and preserve endangered
land and waterways.
The group has a long history of success in the Commonwealth, including a 55-year history working to preserve the Eastern Shore and its barrier islands, as well as other projects such as adding solar panels on reclaimed mining sites.
Bettina Ring, the state director for the Nature Conservancy, joined the organization in 2023 after a long career in public service, including as Virginia secretary of agriculture and forestry, and as Virginia’s state forester. She described the Virginia Nature Conservancy as a trusted, nonpolitical organization with a
history of success.
“Across the state we have about 80 employees,” Ring says. “We’ve prioritized our work based on good science, and we’ve built this really robust and resilient network.”
One of the largest-ever Nature Conservancy land conservation projects on the East Coast is underway, the 253,000-acre Cumberland Forest Project in Southwest Virginia, Tennessee and Kentucky. Ring says the project shows that good conservation benefits local communities as well as natural habitats.
Going forward, the Virginia Nature Conservancy’s work in that region includes the largest open space easement ever recorded in Virginia: 22,856 permanently protected acres in Russell County, part of a partnership with the Virginia Department of Forestry and the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality. The organization is also active preserving the Clinch River, a vital waterway for regional biodiversity.
Rivanna Conservation Alliance
The Rivanna River forms just a few miles north of Charlottesville and flows 42 miles before joining the James, winding toward the Chesapeake Bay.
For the Albemarle County region, the health of the Rivanna and its tributaries is a measure of the region’s overall ecological health. And monitoring the river’s health for good policy requires dependable, regular data on its condition.
That’s where the Rivanna Conservation Alliance comes in. It’s a locally based nonprofit that systemically tests the health of the river, taking samples of such scientific quality that the Commonwealth of Virginia trusts its data as much as the state’s own.
The group came together formed through the merger of the Rivanna Conservation Society and Stormwatch. The first group was oriented around clean-up and preservation efforts, and the second was partnering with local governments and other groups to do rigorous testing of the river’s health. “It was clear over time that the two groups were stronger together,” says Lisa Wittenborn, the Rivanna Conservation Alliance’s
executive director.
Today, the alliance manages multiple water testing programs. One takes samples of the river bottom, monitoring the health of bottom-feeding organisms to assess the river’s total ecosystems, Wittenborn says. The group also conducts an e coli testing program for water safety, and it works with local governments to identify any flare-ups of unsafe conditions in the river.
The results are used by both local governments and the state Department of Environmental Quality, as well as by regular visitors of locations public river access locations such as Darden Towe Park,
where the Alliance measures
water quality, with publicly
available reports.
Wittenborn says the group looks forward to continuing to coordinate volunteer work, river clean-ups, events such as RiverFest, and works with property owners and others to steward the river.
Southern Environmental Law Center
Protecting the environment doesn’t mean just hands-on work in the field; sometimes it requires rolled-up sleeves in the courtroom.
The Southern Environmental Law Center, headquartered in Charlottesville, is one of the largest environmental nonprofits in the region, employing more than 230 staff members across six states and Washington, D.C., including 110 environmental lawyers.
Sometimes, its work means litigation in front of a judge or jury about a case that affects the environment. In such cases, the center, which runs on donations, provides its services free of charge.
The SELC also advocates for public policy that will preserve the environment, and helps to identify trends across the region. “We’re doing place-based work on the ground, and that’s part of our DNA,” says DJ Gerken, president and executive director of SELC. “We also bring everything that we learn defending the South to the national stage, operating shoulder-to-shoulder with national groups.”
The group’s past work includes serving as the primary lawyers on litigation on the environmental impacts of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a proposed project cancelled in 2020.
In the immediate future, Gerken says he sees the center involved in more litigation, though the amount of such work waxes and wanes over time. “One of the things that pride ourselves on is fitting in the strategic moment, and this is a litigation moment,” he says. “Usually, half or more of our work is in litigation, and right now it’s more like 70 percent.”
The center usually joins cases, drawn from across the south, in which someone with an environmental issue is facing a company or larger entity with deeper legal resources. The center can help balance the playing field.
“We believe that everyone has a right to clean air and clean water, and occasionally government fails to do its job protecting that. We fill the gap,” Gerken says.