On October 21, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar presented a Partners in Conservation Award to the Civil War Preservation Trust (CWPT) for its partnership with the National Park Service to permanently preserve nearly 30,000 acres of Civil War battlefield land across the United States. The Civil War Preservation Trust is a member of the National Coalition for History.

The Secretary’s Partners in Conservation Awards are presented annually to recognize conservation achievements and collaborative activity among a diverse range of entities that may include Federal, State, local and tribal governments, private for-profit and nonprofit institutions, other nongovernmental entities, and individuals. The other entities honored for their ongoing work in conjunction with NPS are the National Geographic BioBlitz and the Bridging the Watershed Partnership.

CWPT works closely with Civil War-related National Parks to formulate land protection priorities, acquiring historic land outside of park boundaries and acting to purchase in-holding properties on behalf of the park when cost or expediency dictate.

In the past three years, the Civil War Preservation Trust has nearly doubled the preserved acreage at Richmond National Battlefield Park in Virginia and saved one-of-a-kind, at-risk land at Appomattox, Fredericksburg, Bentonville, Fort Donelson, Chancellorsville, and other sites.