What Is the Save Tuckertown Effort by Three Rivers Land Trust?

Updated

Save Tuckertown is a Three Rivers Land Trust campaign to purchase Alcoa-owned land around the Tuckertown Reservoir so it can remain open to the public for recreation as Game Lands. The trust presents the effort as a way to keep those acres accessible rather than see them closed off or developed, and it invites supporters to contribute to the purchase. The campaign sits alongside the trust's other priorities—expanding public lands, saving family farms, protecting local waters and wildlife habitat, and conserving land near Fort Bragg—within its 15-county service region in the Piedmont and Sandhills of North Carolina.

What the Campaign Is Trying to Do

The core goal is a land purchase: Three Rivers Land Trust is working to buy the Alcoa-owned lands on the Tuckertown Reservoir. The stated purpose is to keep these lands accessible to the public for recreation as Game Lands. In practical terms, that means the trust is treating the parcel as a conservation acquisition whose public-access value is the reason to act.

The trust frames this within a broader record of expanding recreational access. It says it has built on a legacy of making over 8,000 acres available as local parks, state parks, game lands, and national forests. Save Tuckertown is presented as a continuation of that approach—acquiring land so the public keeps a place to hunt, fish, and otherwise recreate.

Why the Trust Says It Matters

The campaign connects to several of the organization's conservation priorities:

  • Public access: Keeping the reservoir lands open as Game Lands preserves recreation opportunities that would otherwise depend on a private owner's decisions.
  • Local waters and wildlife: The trust says it permanently conserves land along the region's rivers and streams and protects critical habitat for native species; reservoir-frontage land fits that pattern.
  • Regional character: The trust works with private landowners and public agencies to conserve natural, scenic, agricultural, and historic places across its 15-county region.

The trust's own framing is that these lands should stay accessible to the public rather than be lost to other uses. That is the argument behind the purchase, not an independent assessment of the parcel's condition or the deal's terms.

How Supporters Can Contribute

The trust's site describes the campaign as one the public can support and points readers to a "Learn More" page for Save Tuckertown. That page is the place to check for current details on the effort and on how contributions are handled. The site also references subscribing, and its payment signals include Stripe, which suggests online giving is part of the site's setup—but confirm the specifics on the campaign page rather than assuming a particular form or amount.

If you want to help, a reasonable sequence is:

  1. Open the Save Tuckertown page from the trust's homepage and read the current description of the purchase effort.
  2. Look for the trust's stated ways to give or otherwise support the campaign, and follow the instructions shown there.
  3. If you need details before committing—such as what happens to the land if the purchase succeeds, or how funds are used—contact the trust directly through the contact information on its site.

What to Keep in Mind

The available material describes the campaign's purpose and the trust's broader record, but it does not include the purchase price, acreage, timeline, or the status of negotiations with Alcoa. Those are the details that would tell you how close the effort is to succeeding, and they should be confirmed on the campaign page or with the trust rather than inferred. The same applies to any giving mechanics: the site's payment setup indicates online transactions are possible, but the terms, amounts, and any restrictions belong to the campaign page and the trust's own communications.

For the wider context—which counties the trust serves and what it has accomplished—see the trust's county impact information and its conservation priorities, both linked from the homepage.