Land Conservation

In 2018, NPF made a $536,000 Signature Grant to the Friends of Congaree Swamp, and a $50,000 Catalyst Grant to the Open Space Institute, to purchase the 214-acre Running Creek property from Weyerhaeuser to be added to the Park. After a multi-year boundary expansion process, the property was donated to NPS in 2021. The addition preserves three miles of river frontage and important old-growth bottomland hardwood habitat, as well as increases public access for boating and fishing and preserves both banks of the creek.

In September 2020, The Conservation Fund, Hoonah Indian Association, the National Park Service, and NPF announced the addition of a 150-acre cultural site to Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Southeast Alaska. The addition to the park, which sits at the head of Berg Bay, is a sacred site for the Huna Tlingit and is managed in collaboration with the Hoonah Indian Association, a federally recognized tribal government through a unique conservation easement. The land provides opportunities for tribal members to engage in traditional cultural practices and supports public access to fishing, hiking, and camping opportunities.

In December 2020, Acting Secretary of the Interior, David Bernhardt, designated the home of Medgar and Myrlie Evers and their family as a national monument, to honor the lives and sacrifices of civil rights activists Medgar and Myrlie. To support NPS’s acquisition of the property, NPF paid for a property survey, title work, and environmental site assessments for the home of the civil rights leaders and nearby vacant land.

In 2017, Congress authorized the addition of the Forks of the Road site to Natchez National Historical Park. Prior to the Civil War, the Forks of the Road market was the second largest market for the sale of enslaved persons in the Deep South. NPF is helping NPS acquire properties within the new Forks of the Road site, and during the Natchez Juneteenth celebration in 2021, NPS announced the successful acquisition of the first two tracts at the site, with additional acquisitions anticipated in future years.

Ocmulgee Mounds National Historical Park is a unique urban park that tells the story of 17,000 years of continuous human habitation of the Ocmulgee basin. NPF was among several partners that helped add a 900-acre property to Ocmulgee Mounds National Historic Park. The addition protects a Native American cultural site, as well as a riparian landscape within an urban community. The 900 acres purchased are the first piece of a 3,000-acre, larger acquisition project, and NPF and partners are working with willing sellers to continue the process to preserve the culturally significant and sacred land of the Muscogee (Creek) Nation from the threat of development.