The Clifton Institute Inc

Restoration. In 2024, through our landowner outreach program, we continued to provide free and personalized advice to landowners in six virginia counties about how to manage invasive species, establish native plants, and support wildlife. Our management of our 900-acre field station serves as a demonstration to the thousands of people that visit us every year. In 2024, we managed 44 acres of grasslands and shrublands with prescribed burns. We cleared 10 acres of shrublands of invasive species and, we controlled 10 acres of wavyleaf basketgrass in our forests. In 2024, we enrolled our eighth farmer in the virginia native seed project, a partnership formed to jumpstart the native seed industry in the state.

Research. We do research that helps us understand how land management decisions affect declining native species. And then we make sure that what we learn from our research gets back into the hands of the people who can use it. For the last few years, we have been studying american kestrels and eastern box turtles to figure out how to manage habitat for these charismatic species. We have also been studying native grasslands to learn about the conservation status of these habitats and come up with strategies to restore them. In 2024, 12 research technicians and interns tracked 19 american kestrels and 11 box turtles from spring through fall. We published 2 peer-reviewed papers about our research projects and we gave 5 presentations and workshops about our results.