SWAN CONSERVATION TRUST

Swan Trusts Preservation Program includes land acquisitions, accepting gifts of land, and the preparation, filing, and monitoring of conservation easements. Swan Trust holds three conservation easements, which are monitored annually by volunteers. Volunteers perform all the work on grant proposals, easements, stewardship, and monitoring of the 1,500-acre Big Swan Headwaters Preserve and the 100-acre Highland Woods Preserve. The 25-acre Langford Branch State Natural Area is cooperatively managed with the State of Tennessee. In 2024, Swan Trust began work on the Nashville Highland Rim Forest project (NHRF). The NHRF project promotes conservation easements to link a 50,000-acre forest corridor between existing parks in Nashville, Tennessee to protect water and air quality in Nashville and promote wildlife conservation. This included promoting conservation easements with landowners, and preparing/funding conservation easements.

Swan Trusts Protection Program includes educational outreach to promote protection of Tennessees Western Highland Rim through plant, bird, arthropod, and amphibian identification hikes, annual newsletters, and childrens environmental programs. It also includes scientific research by colleges and universities. In 2024, Tennessee State University graduate students began surveying creeks on Big Swan Headwaters Preserve for the State-endangered Hellbender Salamander. Swan Trust provided 8 events between April and September with experts in botany, biology, ecology, ornithology, and biodiversity for public education. A calendar of these events was printed and mailed to 600 residents of Tennessee, Kentucky and Alabama and posted on the website. Two additional events were held to pick up litter in order to keep it out of streams and the Langford Branch State Natural Area. In 2024, Swan Trusts volunteer biologist met with students in a local school on fifteen occasions to perform fall seed collections and spring seed planting, to explore a wetland, to sample creek macroinvertebrates, and to begin birdwatching skills. Swan Trust volunteers provided tubs of macroinvertebrates from Big Swan Creek at the Hohenwald October Heritage Festival to teach children about biodiversity and water quality.