• Introduction
• A Low-cost Tourist Attraction
• Benefits For Rural Regions
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Benefits for rural regions

Gallitano also served as the project’s public face; she promoted the concept to communities like Plymouth that stand to benefit from it. In the late 1990s, after watching many of the local manufacturing jobs disappear, people in this small Washington County town decided to focus on nature-based tourism as an economic development tool.
“As one of the most financially stressed counties in the state, we knew we didn’t have a lot of money to invest in the infrastructure that would attract industry,” Mayor Brian Roth says. “At the same time, we realized the nearby Roanoke River is a huge draw for tourists.”

Roth was looking for ways to promote Plymouth’s natural assets when he met Gallitano at the first public Birding Trail meeting. “She unveiled plans for the Trail and I thought, ‘Here’s a parallel effort. How can we make them come together?’”

The Plymouth Town Council passed a letter of support for the Birding Trail last fall. “We’re committed to promoting it any way we can,” Roth says. “We have nice hotels and restaurants here, so we’re well suited to take advantage of all the Trail offers. Ecotourism doesn’t require a lot of infrastructure, it just takes marketing.”

As an organization, the NC Birding Trail has raised funds from the NC Department of Commerce, the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation and the GoldenLEAF Foundation to promote the Trail. Salinda Daley, the Trail’s first full-time staff member, will coordinate these outreach efforts, while local communities and state agencies work together to make sure people can find and enjoy the Trail. The Commerce Department will advertise it on its Web site www.visitnc.com and place maps in visitors’ information centers across the state. Communities will highlight local attractions like museums, art galleries and restaurants and prepare for tourist traffic.

“Tourism is the key to the Trail’s success,” Tomas says. “Without it, there’s no chance for economic development, and no reason for communities to support the trail.”

As the state’s second largest industry, tourism attracted more than 49 million people to North Carolina in 2003, making it the sixth most visited state in the country. Ecotourism is one of the fastest growing segments of the travel business, and North Carolina, with its varied topography, is in the perfect position to capitalize on it.

“I don’t think people realize how good it is,” says Simon Thompson, the owner of Ventures Birding Tours, a Skyland-based company that leads birding and wildlife tours in locations worldwide. “North Carolina has the highest peaks on the east coast as well as the coastal swamps. Such a wide range of habitat is unusual in a state.”

Conservation-minded folks will be pleased to learn that the Trail’s success is likely to foster protection of this environmental wealth. “Our theory is that if you bring tourists to these rural areas, the local residents will see that their natural resources have an economic value and take steps to protect them,” Gallitano says. The NC Birding Trail hopes to also encourage environmental education in these areas by connecting educators to wildlife and bird-focused teaching resources.

“Our mission is to promote three aspects of the trail that are interrelated: sustainable bird watching, economic opportunity and conservation education,” Gallitano says.

With more than 60 sites already selected in the coastal plain east of Interstate 95 and 40 more sites awaiting review, the coastal plain component of the Trail is taking shape. All of the sites offer access to birds and other wildlife as well as local attractions. Some of them, like Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge in Dare County, the Palmetto-Peartree Preserve in Tyrrell County, and Hammocks Beach State Park in Onslow County, are well-known birding destinations. But others, such as the Stewart Parkway River Walk in Washington County and the Cashie Wetlands Walk in Bertie County, are examples of our state’s hidden treasures, easy-to-reach places where you can explore our coastal habitat and see the birds that live there.

“What’s amazed me is that a lot of small towns have great birding sites,” Gallitano says. “But chances are, if you don’t live nearby, you don’t know about them. The North Carolina Birding Trail will help you find them.”

Sidney Cruze is a Carolina Country contributing writer who lives
in Durham.