Sở Bảo Tồn và Giải Trí Bảo Tồn. Bảo Vệ. Tận Hưởng.
Sở Bảo Tồn và Giải Trí 
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Hauling heavy orange bags filled with hundreds of green saplings, a crew of workers crossed uneven fields on foot, pausing to jab a small hole in the ground with a sharp tool, drop a young longleaf pine and stomp on the soil before dashing on to plant the next one several feet away.
One by one, more than 50,000 saplings were planted over 114 acres of Dendron Swamp Natural Area Preserve in Sussex County last month as part of DCR’s ongoing work to reintroduce longleaf pine to southeast Virginia.
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Rebecca Wilson, DCR longleaf pine restoration specialist, stood in the middle of a clearing where a dense loblolly pine plantation had been cut down the previous winter. Bending down to smooth the freshly planted tuft of bright green pine needles with her hand, Wilson said the trees were currently in their “grass” stage, when they look more like blades of clumped grass than woody stems of young trees.
“Five days ago, we burned this area,” in preparation for planting, she said. Longleaf pine is adapted to frequent, low-intensity fires, and DCR and other state agencies and partners manage these ecosystems with prescribed burning.
“Today, we hired a crew to come out, and we’re planting longleaf pine seedlings.” The project is supported by a grant awarded to DCR through its partners.
It will take decades — maybe 100 years — but it’s “going to be completely amazing!” she said.
Since 2008, young longleaf pine communities have been restored on thousands of acres at other natural area preserves including Chub Sandhill, also in Sussex County. Restoring longleaf pine habitat, which supports a rich ecosystem of plant and animal species, is important for biodiversity conservation and protecting natural and cultural heritage.
The seeds for roughly half of the seedlings came from pinecones that DCR had collected from the native old-growth longleaf trees found at South Quay Sandhills Natural Area Preserve. Other seeds were propagated in a Virginia Department of Forestry orchard in New Kent, where staff had grafted branches from those South Quay Sandhills trees onto nursery trees being cared for in a more controlled setting. In both cases, the emphasis is on Virginia-native seed sources for this restoration effort.
Returning fire and longleaf pine to this landscape hearkens back to hundreds of years ago, when millions of acres of pine savannas, in particular longleaf pine, fulfilled the European colonists’ demands for waterproof ships – as the trees supplied both the lumber and the tar.
Looking to the future, they hold a special location on the northern end of the species’ range.
Virginia’s longleaf pines are genetically distinct from those in more southern regions, which means they are less susceptible to cold temperatures, long winters and heavy snows – a difference with mounting significance in the face of climate change.
Compared to longleaf pines from further south, Wilson said, “Virginia trees do better in Virginia.”
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