The Arc of Appalachia’s 2026-2027 Land Campaign is coming together!
Deeper information is still being developed for the listed land pursuits. If the title is underlined, more info is already available - just click and view.
New River Wilderness - Raleigh Co, WV
next to New River Gorge National Park
Arbutus Run is a critically important 120-acre component of a 231-acre family legacy project in Hocking Hills that is a private inholding in Clear Creek Metro Park. The project will protect the headwaters historic Neotoma Valley, once the home and field station of Ohio’s famous naturalist, Edward Thomas, and now part of Clear Creek Metro Park. Arbutus Run protects immense black hand sandstone rock outcrops, a stunning rock shelter, and habitat for over 100 species of breeding birds that nest in the region, many of neotropical migrants..
231 acres next to Clear Creek Metro Park
in Hocking County, OH
KILLBUCK SWAMP EXPANSION
186 acres in 2 acquisitions - Holmes Co, OH
Black Creek Swamp & Bowfin Bottoms
Killbuck Swamp Preserve is centered in the largest wetlands in interior Ohio, second in size only to the marshes of Lake Erie. The preserve was founded in 2021 and 2022 with two phases of expansion that brought the swamp to 350 acres. Thanks to Clean Ohio grants, we are now increasing the preserve to 538 acres, and need to raise private funds for the 25% match. Two H2Ohio restoration grants have also been awarded. The drain tiles are being removed, and the WATER IS RISING!! Killbuck is home to breeding sandhill cranes and trumpeter swans!
Ensuring Protection & Access to
Five Miles on the Gauley
What an opportunity! The 1,336-acre Five Miles on the Gauley project is a landlocked parcel, accessible only by an easement over private property. Just this summer, that 50 acres of land came up for sale. Being level terrain, it could someday be divided into multiple cabin tracts, and if it did, we would lose the remote wilderness setting of Five Miles, and much of its protection. We are now in signed contract! The acquisition will give us dedicated road access for the first time, and a place to build a parking lot right at the road entrance so that we can hold special events and share this special place with more people. Click here for Deeper information.
Beaver Wetlands is the Arc’s first, but not our last, pursuit in Gallia County, OH, a c0unty that borders the Ohio River. Dirty Face Creek runs through the property and is a tributary of Symmes, a creek that drains directly into the Ohio River. The parcel borders Wayne National Forest, boasting wetlands lining both sides of Dirty Face. This region on the Jackson/Gallia county line is WET, and one of the best places in Ohio for wetlands restoration projects. The creek is an absolute magnet for beaver. Their dams are common sights along Dirty Fae - slowing down the stream’s current, deepening the water, and contributing to high wildlife biodiversity. Deeper information.
Protecting legendary Dirty Face Creek
86 acres in Gallia County, OH
LAST RESORT
Expanding Protection on the Rocky Fork Gorge
19 acres - Highlands Nature Sanctuary, OH
For 31 years, the Arc of Appalachia has been working doggedly and relentlessly to preserve the final ten miles of Rocky Fork Creek as it sculpts a stunning, steep-sided karst gorge on the way to its confluence with historic Paint Creek. Last Resort is small in size but mighty in its contributions - filling in a puzzle piece on an especially steep section Rocky Fork Gorge that is particularly picturesque. If you know the Sanctuary, then you know the Barrett’s Rim Trail. Just before you descend into the gorge on this trail, all the mature forest and rock features you see to your right? That’s Last Resort!!
A crown jewel among our Eastern Rivers
1,336 acres in Nicholas County, WV
How often do properties this stunning and this large come along for sale? The Gauley River is mountain-born, its origins in the highlands of the 919,000-acre Monongahela National Forest. Five miles of the Gauley, along with one mile of Big Beaver Creek, carve out deep valleys shrouded with hemlocks and rhododendrons. This property lies immediately upstream of Summersville Lake in a peaceful, rarely visited portion of the river. Downstream from Summersville Lake, the Gauley provides one of the world’s most beloved white-water adventures in the 24-mile span of the National Recreation Area. Click here for Deeper information.
Our dream is to build a one-mile preservation corridor between these two large, pre-existing conservation blocks in Hocking Hills - Clear Creek Metro Park and Cantwell Cliffs. Emerald Forest project is critically placed to further our progress! The property boasts pristine, sand-bottomed streams, beaver ponds, striking rock formations, extensive skunk cabbage wetlands, and dense colonies of wet-loving cinnamon ferns. We are enchanted with the salamander diversity on this VERY wet property and the profusion of ferns covering every nook and cranny. Click here for deeper information.
Connecting Clear Creek w/Hocking Hills
210 Acres, 2 acquisitions - Hocking County, OH
The protection of Welkin Ring, despite its relatively small size among Arc holdings, will represent a major conservation victory once it is fully funded, and we are almost there!. The site has allured botanists for generations because of its impressive, ultra-rare flora and its exceptionally scenic sandstone cliffs. Welkin Ring is one of the most beautiful places we have ever laid eyes on. The property is dominated by a 200-foot-high sandstone-knobbed pinnacle that is crowned with Virginia pines that form a bower above colonies of wild blueberries. Click here for deeper information.
A rare sandstone-bluff community
45 Acres in Jackson County, OH
RED STONE FARM WETLANDS
Just a few miles south of the Highlands Nature Sanctuary, an impressively towering swamp forest known as ‘Beechflats’ once grew. With the demise of the beaver and the invention of drain tile, however, Beechflats literally disappeared off the face of the earth. Today, it exists only as a passing mention in the older local history books. Until, that is, someone dared the impossible dream of breathing Beechflats back to life. The result was a wildly successful wetlands restoration project. Then, suddenly, the dream got a whole lot bigger!
RECENTLY COMPLETED CAMPAIGNS
1,200 Acres - COMPLETED!
Greenbrier County, WV
at the Highlands Nature Sanctuary - COMPLETED! Highland County, OH
5 Acres - COMPLETED!
Scioto County, OH
Cliff Run- Phase 2 & 3
300 Acres - COMPLETED!
Ross County, OH
60 Acres - COMPLETED!
Hocking County, OH
110 Acres - COMPLETED!
Carter County, KY
8 Acres - COMPLETED!
Highland County, OH
468 additional acres - COMPLETED!
Pike Co, OH