New Program Expands Conservancy's Cave Protection Work [1]

Tennessee Chapter is first to use federal grant exclusively for caves

Nashville, TN — March 12, 2007 — Tennessee property owners will soon have new incentives to protect caves and their creatures.

To keep Tennessee’s caves healthy, The Nature Conservancy has begun a two-year federally funded Landowner Incentive Program (LIP) administered by the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). Through LIP, Conservancy stewards provide guidance and financial help so landowners can safeguard caves and their surrounding habitats. Although LIP programs have been used extensively by The Nature Conservancy to protect rivers, this is the first instance of any state chapter in the Conservancy using a LIP grant exclusively for protection of caves and their creatures.

Tennessee has more caves than any other state — over 8,500. These caves shelter numerous rare animal species, including bats, salamanders, crayfish and invertebrates. A number of these creatures are only now being identified. When The Nature Conservancy’s Tennessee Chapter recently employed cave biologist Dr. Julian Lewis to survey more than 100 caves across the state, he and Conservancy staff found more than 40 species previously unknown to science.

The majority of Tennessee’s caves are on private land, which means that it’s up to the owners how the caves and their hidden residents are treated. “Unfortunately,” says Heather Garland, manager of the Conservancy’s Tennessee Caves Initiative, “landowners aren’t always interested in protecting rare animals.”

Cave LIP, however, gives landowners reasons to make positive changes. Under the program, the federal government pays 75 percent of costs for cleanup, restoration and improvements. The 25 percent matching funds can come from the landowners themselves, the Conservancy and other organizations, or from “in kind” contributions, such as clean-up labor from volunteers.

Nature Conservancy conservation staffer Cory Holliday will be administering the Cave LIP program. He anticipates that his LIP work will include streamside restoration and plantings, septic system repairs, cattle fencing and cleaning trash out of sinkholes. Unfortunately, in rural areas, sinkholes can be convenient waste receptacles, and aging septic tanks often leak. Because of the natural flow of groundwater, both problems threaten the health of caves. Caves are significantly affected by groundwater and streams flowing around them. If land surrounding caves becomes polluted, then inevitably so will the caves, threatening the creatures within.

Such pollution problems can also threaten the health of rural people who rely on well water. So in many of these cases, says Holliday, “landowners will have a vested interest in working with us.”

“If we can show some tangible success with this program,” says Garland, “it will encourage more individuals to fund these cave protection projects.”

The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working to protect the most ecologically important lands and waters around the world for nature and people. To date, the Conservancy and its more than one million members have been responsible for the protection of more than 15 million acres in the United States and have helped preserve more than 102 million acres in Latin America, the Caribbean, Asia and the Pacific. Visit The Nature Conservancy on the Web at www.nature.org [2].