More than 6,400 acres at Orton Plantation has been donated to the N.C. Coastal Land Trust through a perpetual conservation easement by Orton Plantation Holdings LLC, representing one of the largest transactions in the land trust’s history.
Orton Plantation Holdings, owned by conservation philanthropist Louis Moore Bacon, donated the easement totaling more than 6,442 acres, a release from the land trust announced Tuesday.
“The transaction was completed in December 2013, and followed Mr. Bacon’s work earlier in the year to expand the protection of the historic boundary of Orton Plantation,” the release states, noting that boundary includes an adjacent 1,100 acres that are part of a new nomination to the National Register of Historic Places.
The 1,100-acre tract includes woodlands, agricultural fields, and the plantation’s restored rice fields, water courses and gardens. The 6,400-acre easement, according to the release, “is characterized by a variety of natural features, including forestland, creeks, streams and ponds.”
The easements are the latest in the billionaire’s efforts to return Orton and surrounding lands to their original, 18th-century state—as a working rice plantation, and as longleaf pine habitat conducive to species such as the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker and game birds such as quail and wild turkey.
Bacon, a Raleigh native, is a direct descendant of Orton founder Roger Moore. He purchased Orton from the Sprunt family in 2010.
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The release from the land trust, which has worked with private landowners to conserve more than 60,000 acres along the North Carolina coast since 1992, notes this latest easement is the second coordinated with Orton Plantation Holdings. A similar donation of more than 255 acres was made in late 2012, which the release said complemented other easements in Brunswick County, such as Goose Landing Plantation, Clarendon Plantation, Old Town Plantation and Pleasant Oaks Plantation.
Those lands are located near Brunswick Nature Park, which the release describes as “the centerpiece of more than 16,000 acres of conservation lands protected by the Coastal Land Trust in the vicinity.”
Camilla Herlevich, executive director of the land trust, praised this latest donation in the release, describing the easement as the latest example of the relationship between Orton and the land trust.
“This donated conservation easement represents a giant step forward in protecting the lower Cape Fear corridor for conservation, a founding goal of the Coastal Land Trust more than two decades ago,” Herlevich said. “We are grateful for this extraordinarily generous contribution and look forward to working with Louis Bacon and his team in the years to come.”
