Grayson LandCare Links

LandCare is rich with support from many local, regional and global supporters. Information flows richly and freely with benefit for all. Please take a minute to visit some of our friends and associates among the links below.

  • Appalachian Sustainable Agriculture Project - A nonprofit organization that supports farmers and rural communities in the mountains of Western North Carolina and the Southern Appalachians by providing education, mentoring, promotion, web resources, and community and policy development. Our mission is to create and expand regional community-based and integrated food systems that are locally owned and controlled, environmentally sound, economically viable and health-promoting. Our vision is a future food system throughout the mountains of North Carolina and the Southern Appalachians that provides a safe and nutritious food supply for all segments of society; that is produced, marketed and distributed in a manner that enhances human and environmental health; and that adds economic and social value to rural and urban communities.
  • Blue Ridge Forest Cooperative - The Blue Ridge Forestry Cooperative is pooling resources with forest landowners, adding value to forest products, and centralizing marketing efforts to get the highest returns possible. This higher return allows forest landowners to practice sustainable forestry by harvesting the culls, leaving the best to increase in value, and implementing strong ecological/environmental practices
  • Sustainable Resource Management - Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service, summed up the mission of the Forest Service— "to provide the greatest amount of good for the greatest amount of people in the long run."
  • PLN: Private Landowner Network - The Private Landowner network is a project of the Resources First Foundation to develop an Internet based resource to facilitate and encourage private landowner conservation endeavors. Private Landowner Network (PLN) is an Internet resource that has been designed to aggregate service providers and information to assist and facilitate voluntary private land conservation initiatives. PLN is already a two-year effort funded by Amos Eno’s Resources First Foundation to harness the power of the Internet. It is designed to provide a voluntary information and communication corridor featuring a suite of conservation tools and a portfolio of readily accessible and available programs for the benefit of the target audience of private landowners. PLN provides an effective link to public conservation agencies through featured partnership programs, along with a national referral network of preferred service providers.
  • Rural Systems - Bob Giles is a Virginia Tech professor who has made this his life's work--an intensive analysis of southwest Virginia resources (soil,climate, temp, precipitation,geology--some 100 factors). He has studied this beautiful country in 10-yard squares and worked up a computer model. This is the base for a network of some 90 enterprises aimed at sustainable, year-round livelihoods for the people who live here. He calls us the Land Force. He has a directness and clarity of vision that is rare. Take a look at the website, and if you think it has merit, please share it with people you know
  • Council for US Landcare Initiative - The mission of US Landcare is to support private/public partnerships capable of delivering sustained improvements in economic, social, and environmental outcomes through land stewardship initiatives, and to promote and enhance a national land care ethic.
  • LandCare Australia - Landcare is a national network of thousands of locally-based community groups who care for our country. Australia is proud to boast more than 4000 community landcare groups and many thousands of landcare volunteers in most towns across the country. Through Australia's people and communities, the Landcare movement is making a big difference in caring for our country. All around Australia, Landcare volunteers are proving that together we can repair and viably manage our precious natural resources. This unique partnership between communities, government and organizations is achieving great things.
  • New River Highlands RCD ∓ D Council - Mission: To promote the management of natural resources within the capability for the enhancement of the quality of life and environment in the New River-Highlands Resource Conservation and Development Area.
  • New River Land Trust - The New River Land Trust conserves farmland, forests, open spaces and historic places in Virginia’s New River region. Our home is changing rapidly and we are in danger of losing our vital landscapes and our feeling of connection to the land -- literally the grounding of our communities.To enhance life in our communities, the New River Land Trust will work with landowners and local governments to protect land for farming, forestry, natural habitat, and recreation. Our region includes Bland, Carroll, Floyd, Giles, Grayson, Montgomery, Pulaski, and Wythe counties and the cities of Galax and Radford.
  • New River Watershed Roundtable - The purpose of the New River Watershed Roundtable is to promote better water quality through fair, open dialogue and effective partnerships. Our goal is to envision the New River Watershed Roundtable as a community at work to protect and enhance the water quality of the New River Watershed. The New River Watershed Roundtable includes elected officials, staff from state and federal agencies and representatives of planning districts, soil and water conservation districts, conservation organizations, agriculture, silviculture, fishing organizations, tourism, business and industry.
  • Tamar NRM - Proposed Sister LandCare Group in Tasmania
  • Virginia Department of Forestry - Protecting and developing healthy, sustainable forest resources.
  • College of Natural Resources at VA Tech - The College of Natural Resources can provide the education necessary for professional careers in conserving, using, and sustaining renewable resources. Within the college, you will prepare for a career that is personally gratifying, environmentally responsible, and of direct benefit to society.
  • Conservation Management Institute - The Conservation Management Institute (CMI) is a research center within the College of natural Resources at Virginia Tech. CMI was established in 2000 to better address multi-disciplinary research questions that affect conservation management effectiveness in Virginia, North America, and the world. Faculty from Virginia Tech and other research institutions work collaboratively on projects ranging from endangered species propagation to natural resource-based satellite imagery interpretation.
  • Department of Forestry at VA Tech - The mission of the Department of Forestry is the education of undergraduate and graduate students, professional foresters, and the general public and the generation and application of new knowledge concerning the management of forest resources.
  • Land Use Value Assessment Program - Extensive web based resources and information on land use valuation & taxation.
  • NonTimber Forestry Products - Interest in non-timber forest products (NTFPs) is increasing rapidly. At present there are numerous efforts to increase awareness of these products, their management and market potential. However, there is a shortage of information available and there are few means effective in disseminating the information necessary for the sustainable management and marketing of these resources and products. The Virginia Tech Department of Wood Science and Forest Products, the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station and the Top of the Ozarks RC&D in Missouri, through the initial support of the USDA Forest Service Northeastern Area State and Private Forestry Economic Action Programs, are collaborating to develop and operate this first web site devoted to gathering information on products and markets. We seek to provide information in simple formats and serve as a national clearing house that is useful by NTFP harvesters and growers, marketers, processors, and end-users.
  • VATech Co-op - Extension NewsMonth by Month list of all the newsworthy items at VA Tech COOP
  • Virginia Tech - Beginning in 1872 with 132 students and two programs of study, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, popularly known as Virginia Tech, has evolved into a comprehensive university of national and international prominence. With about 25,600 full-time students and the home of groundbreaking research, Tech produces world-class scholarship in a challenging academic environment. University tradition is firmly rooted in our motto, Ut Prosim (That I May Serve) and in our land-grant missions of instruction, research, and solving the problems of society through public service and outreach activities.