Together with its partners, the Fund has conserved more than 140,000 acres of Maryland’s most important wetlands, farmlands, and working forests - from the Chesapeake Bay to Catoctin Mountain - to benefit wildlife, outdoor enthusiasts, and local economies.

Recent Projects

Wicomico River

Since the Captain John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail was established in 2006, visitors have been able to relive Smith’s historic voyages. Soon, modern-day explorers will be able to more fully follow in the captain’s footsteps. Together with the state of Maryland, in 2008 we protected a 350-acre swath of forestland skirting Maryland’s Wicomico River. The property is considered the trail’s first primitive camping site. To date, we and our partners have preserved more than 147,000 acres of valued landscapes across the state.

Past Projects

Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge

Over more than a decade, working with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the State of Maryland, we have helped to acquire more than 6,800 acres in almost 20 separate transactions to establish and expand the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. Located 12 miles south of Cambridge, Maryland, the refuge helps to preserve the Chesapeake Bay’s designation as a "Wetlands of International Importance.” Rich tidal marshes, freshwater ponds and mixed woodlands provide a winter home to some of the largest concentrations of canvasback and redhead ducks in the Chesapeake Bay and winter roosting and feeding habitat for wood ducks, black ducks, mallards, northern pintails and blue-winged teal. The refuge also shelters many other species, including bald eagles, Sitka deer, and the endangered Delmarva fox squirrel.

Catoctin Mountain

Through Maryland’s GreenPrint Program, the Fund acquired more than 500 acres near Cunningham Falls State Park, just north of Catoctin Mountain National Park and close to Camp David. The Town of Emmitsburg will manage the site to protect water quality and the scenic integrity of this historic area while the Catoctin Land Trust and Maryland Environmental Trust hold a conservation easement on the property.

Deal Island Wildlife Management Area

Thanks in part to support from Richard King Mellon Foundation, the salt marshes of southeastern Maryland’s Deal Island Wildlife Management Area serve as a winter haven for blue-winged teal, pintails and wigeons, and a year-round home for blue crab. In 2005, along with the state’s department of natural resources, we secured a conservation easement on 444 acres of coastal forests and marshland along Deal Island’s Saint Peter’s Creek and Butler’s Cove.

Rural Legacy Program

Along the sheltered bays of Maryland’s Atlantic coastline, farms, forests, and fisheries have long sustained local communities. In recent years, however, the Coastal Bays region has been losing ground to development and rapid population growth. As a lead partner in Maryland’s Rural Legacy Program, we are working with local communities and landowners to protect sensitive shoreline, wildlife habitat, and the agricultural way of life on fragile coastal bay lands.

Thus far the successful partnership has protected 12,864 acres of working landscapes, sensitive shorelines and wildlife habitat, including 16 miles of coastline along Chincoteague Bay. Along the Nanticoke River and the state’s fragile coastal bays, we are preserving sensitive shoreline, wildlife habitat and an agricultural way of life. The successful partnership has resulted in the protection of more than 8,500 acres of working farms and forests in the Nanticoke River area.

Read about the following projects in detail: