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Episcopal nuns honored for saving Bat Cave land

Grassy Creek Cascades are part of the land conserved by the Community of the Transfiguration. [PHOTO BY CMLC]

The Community of the Transfiguration, a 118-year-old order of Episcopal nuns, was honored Sunday for its role in conserving 368 acres along the Broad River in Bat Cave.


The Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy presented its 2016 Lela McBride Award to the Cincinnati, Ohio-based order during the CMLC’s annual Land Lovers Picnic at Camp Pinnacle. The award, named for Lela McBride, a community leader and founder of Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy, honors people who have made significant contributions to land conservation and stewardship in the region.
In 2015, the Community of the Transfiguration placed 410 acres into conservation easement and conveyed title to 368 of the conserved acres to CMLC. The property is located in Bat Cave along the Broad River and its tributaries.
The land will be managed as a teaching and research reserve for the use of students and researchers from local schools, colleges and other educational programs. Currently, Warren Wilson College faculty members are instructing students on the property. Warren Wilson College professor J.J. Apodaca and his students have used the property to gather data for his work on the genetics of the green salamander (Aeneus aneides), which is endangered in North Carolina.
“The Sisters’ conservation ethic set a high standard for CMLC to follow in creating an outdoor classroom,” CMLC Land Protection Director Tom Fanslow said.
Sister Teresa Martin, Superior of the Community of the Transfiguration, accepted the award on behalf of the order.
“This beautiful and pristine land has been and continues to be a great gift to us,” she said. “Above all we want to see it protected and gently used in a way that will honor it and will give back a new vision for the larger community.”
Beginning in the early 1900s, the Society of the Transfiguration began to acquire tracts of mountainous land in the Bat Cave area, primarily to provide relief to distressed farmers who needed help to keep their arable land and to provide opportunities for employment.
For many decades, the sisters have maintained a retreat house on the property, which members of the order visit for quiet rest and spiritual rejuvenation. The order will retain ownership of 42 acres immediately surrounding the retreat house, land that is now permanently conserved with a conservation easement granted to CMLC. The Hickory Nut Gorge Teaching and Research Reserve will not be open to the general public but will be made available to educational organizations by arrangement with CMLC.
In a study completed by CMLC in 2006, the Transfiguration property ranked as the number one priority for conservation in terms of its beneficial impact on protection of water quality in the Upper Broad River watershed. The property provides habitat for rare species such as the green salamander (Aneides aeneus) and the tri-colored bat (Perimyotis subflavus).
The project was made possible with the generous support of Fred and Alice Stanback, Donald and Lisbeth Cooper and the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund as well as the Community of the Transfiguration.