Non-governmental Organizations & Community Groups
Canaan Valley Institute (CVI)
Canaan Valley Institute (CVI) is driven by a mission to ensure the Appalachian region has healthy streams — a critical economic engine for rural communities. CVI’s approach for clean and healthy rivers creates positive results environmentally AND economically.
Conservation Fisheries Inc.
Conservation Fisheries is dedicated to the preservation of aquatic biodiversity in our streams and rivers. Over nearly 30 years we have developed techniques to propagate more than 65 nongame fish, including some of the most imperiled species in the southeastern United States. Our primary goal is to restore fish populations that have been eliminated because of pollution or habitat destruction.
Conserving Carolina
Your support is powering some amazing conservation projects. With your help, Conserving Carolina is creating new parks, trails, and greenways. We’re protecting mountains, foothills, rivers, and farms—over 47,000 acres so far. We’re restoring woods, meadows, and wetlands. We’re engaging people in volunteer work, hikes, outings, field trips, speaker series, native plant gardening, and more.
Defenders of Wildlife
Defenders works on the ground, in the courts, and on Capitol Hill to protect and restore imperiled wildlife across North America and around the world. Together, we can ensure a future for the wildlife and wild places we all love.
Haywood Waterways Association, Inc.
Haywood Waterways Association, Inc's mission is to maintain and improve surface water quality in the Pigeon River Watershed of Haywood County, North Carolina. They accomplish this through two objectives directed at reducing nonpoint source pollution: 1. Educating and focusing attention on the watershed as a natural, economic and recreational resource to be conserved and enhanced for this and future generations; and 2. Working with public agencies, conservation interests, businesses, community groups, and public and private land owners to implement water quality improvement strategies.
Land Trust for Tennessee
For 20 years, The Land Trust for Tennessee has worked in partnership with landowners and communities across the state to protect land important to the people of Tennessee. From family farms and historic landscapes, to public parks and forests spanning thousands of acres, the work of The Land Trust has a lasting impact on people and places. We hope you will join us.
Mainspring Conservation Trust
Mainspring is the land trust in the Southern Blue Ridge mountains, which spans seven counties: Cherokee, Clay, Graham, Jackson, Macon and Swain in North Carolina, and Rabun County, Georgia. Its goal is to conserve and restore the lands and waters of the Southern Blue Ridge, and to connect the people to these natural treasures. Formed in 1997 by a group of visionaries, this organization grew into the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee, until it transitioned to Mainspring Conservation Trust in 2016.
New Mexico Acequia Association
The mission of the New Mexico Acequia Association is to protect water and our acequias, grow healthy food for our families and communities, and to honor our cultural heritage in New Mexico. Through involvement in NMAA, families and youth are inspired to cultivate the land, care for our acequias, and heal past injustices. Communities have an abundance of healthy, locally-grown food because we recognize agriculture as a respected and dignified livelihood and way of life.
Obed Watershed Community Association
Obed Watershed Community Association (OWCA) is a Crossville, TN-based nonprofit with the mission to protect and enhance the watersheds of the Obed River and its tributaries within Cumberland County, TN through community education, creating opportunities for community research and service projects, and promoting conservation, recreation, and best management practices. It also supports activities in other nearby watersheds both within Cumberland County and surrounding counties.
South Chickamauga Creek Greenway Alliance
The South Chickamauga Creek Greenway Alliance is made up of citizens interested in advocating for the protection, preservation, conservation and improvement of the watershed.
Southwest Georgia Project
Southwest Georgia Project is on a mission to educate, engage, and empower communities using a variety of programs and strategies to advance real social change in Southwest Georgia and beyond. They aim to develop a more accessible and community-oriented food system; increase opportunities to family and historically underserved farms; and build sustainable and just movements to shift social norms.
Tennessee Aquarium
We celebrate the rich biodiversity of the Southeast through our exhibits and are actively engaged in preserving and restoring that biodiversity through our work in the field. The Aquarium’s research arm, the Tennessee Aquarium Conservation Institute, has a focused expertise in restoring freshwater ecosystems and helping people appreciate the need for environmental health in our region.
Tennessee River Gorge Trust
The Tennessee River Gorge Trust is the perfect example of what can happen when a small group of thoughtful citizens comes together to change their community for the better. The Trust was founded in 1981 —later incorporated in 1986 — as the result of a dinner party at Adele Hampton’s house on Elder Mountain. Chattanooga-area citizens gathered around her coffee table to discuss the worrisome development of the mountains bordering Chattanooga. Right there in the Hampton’s living room, Chattanoogans decided our mountains are worth protecting. Since then, the cooperation of landowners, TVA, the State of Tennessee and the local community has led the Trust to protect more than 17,000 of the 27,000 acres in the Gorge.
The Nature Conservancy
The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and waters for nature and people. It addresses the most urgent conservation challenges at the largest scale. Today, more of the natural world is at risk than ever before. So this work is crucial to keep vital habitats and unique species from being lost forever.
Upper Tennessee River Roundtable
The Upper Tennessee River Roundtable is a non-profit organization with an overall interest in improving water quality in the Upper Tennessee River Watershed. Don’t let the name confuse you: the Upper Tennessee River Roundtable is based in Southwest Virginia and covers from the very tip of Virginia, Lee County, toward Wythe County. The Roundtable represents a total of nine counties and two cities. Our major rivers include the Clinch, Holston, and Powell.
