2023 Annual Report Shares Highlights & Accomplishments
Scenic Rivers reflects on year of conservation wins in latest impact report
Our Annual Report is always an opportunity to share a few of our “wins” for protected land in Anne Arundel County from the past year, but—WOW!—2023 DELIVERED IN SO MANY DYNAMIC WAYS.
We successfully finalized two incredible projects—after years of hard work and persistence—totaling 288 acres conserved. Huzzah!
We monitored each of our 78 conservation easements, now covering over 3,700 acres, while implementing LANDSCAPE, a cloud-based software application designed specifically for conservation easement monitoring reports (our volunteers and staff loved the upgrade!).
And, of course, we continued to advance another 350 acres of projects in process, securing $765,000 in funding to enable their progress.
Our Healthy Forests Program at Bacon Ridge Natural Area is growing and connecting more members of our community to the protected woods at the heart of our county. We doubled our volunteer numbers from the previous year and helped 24 acres of forest become healthier by controlling invasive plants.
We advocated and testified during the 2023 state legislative session to help pass the Maryland the Beautiful Act and Greenspace Equity Program, advancing and raising the profile of land conservation throughout the state.
And, while the 2023 Walk for the Woods was rained out for the first time in over a decade, our team connected with our community of land conservation supporters in so many ways throughout the year: from guided hikes (which were always “sold out”) to community events like the First Sunday Arts Festival in Annapolis and the Cox Creek Open House in Curtis Bay to our Invasive Plant Webinar with partners from Save Our Trees and Maryland DNR and our third time participating in the Lifeline 100.
And these are just the highlights! There is so much that happens in between each big moment in a year. Most importantly, there are so many people who come together to make each big moment happen: staff, board members, partners, landowners, volunteers, donors, supporters, and friends.
Yes, our work is focused on the land, but our stories about that work always return to the people who come together to protect the places we need and love.
Thank you for being those people. Please read on to see what we can do together.