Mulberry Creek land added to Pisgah National Forest

The most beloved — and at times the most crowded — national forest in the country is getting a little more breathing room.

Pisgah National Forest, which covers more than a half-million acres of heavily forested mountains, mile-high peaks, waterfalls, streams and rivers along the eastern edge of the mountains of Western North Carolina, just added another 517 acres of important conservation land thanks to federal money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund.

The property is near Mulberry Creek in Caldwell County. The Trust for Public Land bought the property for $1.7 million and sold it to the Forest Service for the same price, in two separate transactions, according to a statement from the land trust.

The Forest Service bought the land with money from the Land and Water Conservation Fund, the federal government’s main source of money for protecting land. Fund money comes from federal receipts collected by the government from oil and gas drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf.

“This was a rare opportunity to preserve an important tract of forest just an hour from Charlotte that protects the headwaters of the Catawba River and the water supply for millions of North Carolinians,” said Kent Whitehead, the Carolinas director for The Trust for Public Land.

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