Pam Torlina, a biologist, has been with Conserving Carolina (formerly Pacolet Area Conservancy) for 12 years.

She has over 20 years of experience as a field biologist, naturalist and outdoor educator.  She has worked with the South Carolina State Park Service, the city of Greenville Parks and Recreation-Youth Bureau, the New York State Office of Parks and Recreation and Historic Preservation, and Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve, in Haliburton, Ontario, Canada, where she has performed annual migratory and breeding bird surveys, surveys on nocturnal owls, hawks and woodpeckers, presented educational programs on birds for adults and children, conducted nest searches and nest record data in the U.S. and Canada, participated in data collection for the most recent Ontario Breeding Bird Atlas, and she has volunteered with a licensed bird bander over the past several years.

What is Conserving Carolina?

Conserving Carolina is a nonprofit land trust formed in 2017 by the merger of two local land trusts with deep roots in our communities — Pacolet Area Conservancy and Carolina Mountain Land Conservancy. We serve Polk, Henderson and Transylvania counties in western North Carolina and northeastern Greenville, and northwestern Spartanburg Counties in upstate South Carolina. We help protect and steward land and water resources vital to our natural heritage and quality of life in order to foster appreciation and understanding of the natural world.

What is your role in the organization?

My title is southeast stewardship manager. I am responsible for stewarding Conserving Carolina’s conservation easements and fee simple properties in the southeast region of Conserving Carolina’s service area (Polk County, North Carolina, and Spartanburg and Greenville counties in South Carolina). Roles include communication with conservation easement landowners, annual monitoring of protected properties and support in the completion of new conservation projects in the southeast region. I also engage with the community by providing education outreach.

What are some of the projects/programs you are involved with?

I am involved with education and outreach to the public within the southeast region, which include our free monthly education series at Walnut Creek Preserve and Landrum Library; leading a free guided spring and fall hiking series for the public; leading guided interpretive hikes; and presenting and teaching for local schools, clubs and civic groups. I have also been working with a botanist, David Campbell, to create “An Inventory of the Significant Natural Resources of Polk County, North Carolina,” which documents 32 significant Natural Heritage areas in the county. The document will be available later this year.

How does Conserving Carolina make the community a better place?

Conserving Carolina makes the community a better place first by helping to protect the land, private or public, which preserves habitat for our native plants and wildlife and protects our water resources; all of which are crucial to a healthy ecosystem and living space for the community. By protecting the land, we can connect the community to the land by opening many places for recreation, from state parks to local greenways, which provide numerous recreational opportunities. Our efforts to provide environmental education programs for children and adults about what makes these places so special and important to protect is also a vital asset.

What do you enjoy most about working with the organization?

What I enjoy most about working with the organization is knowing that the work that I do is making a permanent, positive impact on the environment, now and into the future. The land that we protect today provides habitat, or places, for our native plants and animals to live forever. I also enjoy sharing my love of the natural world with others.