2021 was a year of recovery for wildlife and forests across the region for Gathright Land Conservancy. Our mission to preserve and protect native lands this year put us in the face of immense lower canopy growth as giant upper canopy trees fell in the hurricanes of 2020. We faithfully collected game cameras this year and managed our time as best as we could while still repairing our homes. Property exploration and right of way establishment efforts were minimal due to time spent on an overwhelming need in our communities to find new homesteads.
A total of 72 game cameras were used at our forests in 2021. NiMH rechargeable batteries were used in each camera, to prevent the waste of Alkaline disposable batteries.
80+ acres of additional land in Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana are now full deed owned. The immense size of these forest properties and stories they tell with satellite imagery could contain a book by themselves. One key 10 acre property added to our portfolio demonstrates a mounding effect where hundreds of years of sand and soil sediment have been trapped by trees.
43+ acres of land in Cameron Parish, Louisiana was added to our conservation portfolio. Cameron Parish forests experienced vigorous regrowth that after May of 2021 stopped our access. Native Oak and Honeylocust tree seedlings were observed seemingly sprouting everywhere. In contrast to cattle grazing operations along the coastal chenieres of Cameron Parish, we do not clear brush in an effort to give trees a chance to root deep on the soil.
Climate change and other various environmental political initiatives in the United States are starting to influence the legal activity at our forests. Government entities are offering grants to support private conservation projects while at the same time signing away rights and abilities of the property permanently. Oil, natural gas and air space royalties are being peddled by corporations to land owners as well in exchange for signing away rights almost indefinitely. Landowners face pivotal legal decisions that can affect the outcome of their private conservation efforts and face permanent servitudes that government agencies can manipulate. Gathright Land Conservancy encourages landowners to make wise decisions about who can control their properties and to elect instead to use temporary solutions that involve harvest deferral credits.