MAPPING PROJECT

To help carry out the Conservancy’s mission to protect and preserve significant natural, scenic, agricultural and historic land within the James and York Rivers watersheds, the Board of Directors determined it was vital to better understand the land within the region—how it was going to be used in the future and what land was most important to protect.  The idea of creating a map as a visual tool to assist in our goal became the starting point for the project.  From September 2006 to May 2007, Miranda Hutten, a William and Mary senior began work on the project, which quickly expanded to include data that was available through Virginia’s Department of Conservation and Recreation’s Natural Heritage Program.  By the time Hutten graduated, significant data had been collected and she found a rising senior, Andon Zebal, with GIS mapping knowledge to take the project to the next level.

Zebal interned for the Conservancy during the 2007-08 school year. During this time, we determined how we would identify what land had the most conservation value, and found that the Conservancy’s Land Protection Criteria would serve the purpose.  This Board approved guideline actually determines if the property should be protected.  In other words, the document addresses if the land has natural, scenic, agricultural and historic components – which mirrors the Conservancy’s mission. We decided that while we would identify land by each of the aforementioned attributes, the more attributes a property contains, the greater our efforts would be to try and permanently protect the property.

Work on this significant project will continue in the fall.  Thanks to a grant from the Virginia Environmental Endowment, Zebal will be able to complete the work he started, just in time for input to the James City County 2009 Comprehensive Plant Update.