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The Triangle Land Conservancy has bought another big chunk of the largest remaining undeveloped area in the Triangle, with the help of Johnston County, the state and the U.S. Air Force.
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The 800-acre Neuse Islands Wilderness is part of a vast area of swampy cypress and hardwood forests along the Neuse River east of Interstate 95 known as the “Let’Lones.” The property is downriver from other large conservation areas, including the Howell Woods Environmental Learning Center, a 2,800-acre preserve operated by Johnston County Community College.
The land conservancy acquired the Neuse Islands Wilderness in June for $4.6 million. About $1.06 million of that came from Johnston County, which has invested in parks and natural areas as its population has doubled in the last 20 years to more than a quarter million residents.
“This project represents an extraordinary investment in Johnston County’s natural heritage,” Patrick Harris, chairman of the county Board of Commissioners, said in a written statement. “Protecting these lands preserves wildlife habitat, improves water quality, helps reduce flooding and ensures future generations will be able to enjoy and learn from this unique landscape.”
The rest of the money came from the N.C. Land and Water Fund, the land conservancy’s donors and the Air Force via a program focused on mitigating flooding along the Neuse River upstream of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro.
The wilderness area is not open to the public, but the land conservancy says it plans to lead guided hikes there in the fall.
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The Neuse Islands Wilderness gets it name from the pockets of higher ground that remain dry when the river floods. It contains a mix of habitats, including wetlands, oxbow lakes, stands of native rivercane grasses and various types of oak, maple and cypress trees, many more than 200 years old, said Leigh Ann Hammerbacher, the conservancy’s director of conservation for the east side of the Triangle.
“We can think of no better way to celebrate America’s 250th anniversary than to protect some of the forest that was there when our country was founded,” Hammerbacher said in a statement.
The land also contains a historic Black cemetery, Native American archaeological remains and evidence of rice cultivation more than 200 years ago, according to the land conservancy and the county. The conservancy says it worked with the Johnston County Heritage Center and a local archaeological group to begin assessing the sites and plans to continue that research.
The Neuse Islands Wilderness is the Triangle Land Conservancy’s second-largest single land acquisition. The largest was the 1,127-acre Brogden Bottomlands it bought in the Let’Lones in 2019 and sold to the N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation three years later.
The Let’Lones has been a focus area for the land conservancy, which has protected more than 27,000 acres in the region since 1983. Last year it bought 308 acres of the former Rose Dairy Farm along the Neuse River and in May transferred it to the county, which plans to open it to the public as a nature preserve in the fall.
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