The Virginia Natural Area Preserve System is a system of protected areas in the state of Virginia. It was established in the late 1980s to protect sites that were designated as among the most significant natural areas in the state. To become part of the system, a site must first be designated a Natural Area Preserve by the director of the Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation. The dedication itself is similar to a conservation easement, as it places certain legal strictures on future development on a given portion of land. As of 2013 there are sixty-one dedicated preserves in Virginia, containing examples of some of the rarest natural communities to be found in the state; in addition, many serve as a home for locally, nationally, and globally rare species. Most properties are owned by the Department of Conservation and Recreation, but some are owned by local government, while others are held by universities and private citizens. Some are overseen by The Nature Conservancy.
Famous quotes containing the words virginia, natural, area, preserve and/or system:
“Being blunt with your feelings is very American. In this big country, I can be as brash as New York, as hedonistic as Los Angeles, as sensuous as San Francisco, as brainy as Boston, as proper as Philadelphia, as brawny as Chicago, as warm as Palm Springs, as friendly as my adopted home town of Dallas, Fort Worth, and as peaceful as the inland waterway that rubs up against my former home in Virginia Beach.”
—Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)
“For government, though high, and low, and lower,
Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,
Congreeing in a full and natural close,
Like music.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“If you meet a sectary, or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines; but meet on what common ground remains,—if only that the sun shines, and the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it the boundary mountains, on which the eye had fastened, have melted into air.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“There are times when even the most potent governor must wink at transgression, in order to preserve the laws inviolate for the future.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“The pace of science forces the pace of technique. Theoretical physics forces atomic energy on us; the successful production of the fission bomb forces upon us the manufacture of the hydrogen bomb. We do not choose our problems, we do not choose our products; we are pushed, we are forced—by what? By a system which has no purpose and goal transcending it, and which makes man its appendix.”
—Erich Fromm (1900–1980)