Welcome

Welcome to Appalachian Land & Conservation Services Co., LLC, a land investment, development, consulting, and conservation service provider.
Appalachian offers a complete array of real estate services, with an emphasis on conserving open space when appropriate.

Building off of its core natural gas, timber, mining, and development activities, and the powerful market forces at work around us every day, Appalachian uses a pragmatic and entrepreneurial approach to achieve conservation goals.

Our track record is impressive and has yielded positive and tangible results for our clients, investors, partners, the economy, and the natural environment.

Review Appalachian's projects and feel free to contact us with any questions or comments. We especially welcome investors with "patient money" to take advantage of Pennsylvania's natural gas boom.
We Buy Standing Timber
Paying the Fairest Prices for Your Tree Crop
River Ecosystem

Rivers, like all other natural resources, provide free ecosystem services that most people take for granted.

 

Buying and protecting these resources now, in perpetuity, guarantees that clean drinking water, clean air, recreational opportunities, and fresh food will remain available at no cost to future generations.

 

ALCS Mission

Mission Statement

The mission of Appalachian Land & Conservation Services Co., LLC, is to advance conservation goals and values by protecting working landscapes and environmental quality through the use of private markets, and innovative, entrepreneurial real estate transactions and development projects.

Additionally, in its consulting capacity Appalachian provides outstanding value to its non-profit and corporate clients in the areas of real estate consultation, project planning, project development, project-specific fundraising, and environmental and agricultural policy and regulation.

Appalachian’s project planning and development services are especially beneficial to non-profit conservation organizations that seek an experienced guiding hand with obtaining project-specific local, state, federal, and foundation support.

Appalachian specializes in developing projects that combine for-profit methods with conservation goals, a growing trend in the environmental protection and agricultural sectors.

The Benefits

Everyone benefits from this pragmatic approach: The public, land trusts, wildlife and those who enjoy watching or pursuing it, and public service providers. By allowing only very limited and well-designed land development, while retaining nearly all of the pre-existing natural character of the land, Appalachian helps landowners re-connect with the land in a healthy way. Watersheds and scenic viewsheds are permanently protected. Service costs to the public are typically reduced, and land that might have been further developed in the future becomes protected forever and scenically available to the public while still allowing a place for people to live and recreate. Finally, a quality product is the inevitable result.

Most development models use “cookie-cutter” lot layouts that maximize the number of lots and minimize the amount of protected open space around them. These development models destroy the very beauty that attracted people to a particular location or region in the first place, and they preclude a sense of community. But they are nonetheless ubiquitous, primarily because few home buyers are presented with an environmentally friendly alternative, and few developers are willing to try something new.

Appalachian takes a radically different approach, and as a result everyone wins. Whenever possible, Appalachian turns over land it acquires to a public agency, such as the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, the U.S. Forest Service, the National Park Service, and the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

Our Methods

Appalachian will protect working landscapes by using “smart growth” techniques such as dense planning and conservation easements on large lots, as well as by generating environmental credits like carbon sequestration credits.
By purchasing land outright as a private buyer, and having no legal or charter restrictions on the disposition of the land, Appalachian Land & Conservation Services Co., LLC has the ability and flexibility to purchase and protect real estate at a much higher rate than land trusts or government agencies.
As a result, Appalachian is able to use creative and entrepreneurial means to achieve conservation goals while still pursuing the profit motive, a powerful incentive for doing the right thing. It is a classic example of “Doing well by doing good.”

It is possible for Appalachian to use this model because donating endowed conservation easements on large parcels to land trusts, on every parcel it re-sells, allows the company to take significant tax deductions, thereby often coming close to making up the difference in returns in what it could have made using expensive, traditional and destructive cookie-cutter development models.

What Motivates Us

Passion for America’s rural and scenic landscapes and culture, and its historic sites, is what motivates us.

These places inspire us and shape our cultural values every day; they make us distinctly American. Also, an absolute commitment to and confidence in free market capitalism. And finally, a belief that the profit motive is and can be a powerful tool for good and that combining profit with charity is the wisest and healthiest model for implementing capitalism.
“Our country is about more than the success of our economic enterprise, and it is that more that keeps us strong: our moral vigor, determination, and grit, our openness and generosity. The vastness of [America’s] lands has harbored the vastness of the American spirit, and our people will not part with either easily. And they shouldn't.” — Theodore Roosevelt IV, Boston Globe Op-Ed, Sept. 2001

Trenching-Cultivating Tool

Trenching Tool

"Anyone who cares about native plants and animals wants to control invasive plants, and this tool is the answer. Foresters, landscapers, land trust staff, county conservation district staff, farm and ranch owners, this vintage 'Medieval-style' trenching/cultivating tool will be your best friend," says ALCS president Josh First.

Click Here to learn more about this amazing tool and how to buy yours today!

 

Need More Information?

About Us

Josh First

Founded in 2004 by Josh First, President and CEO, as an experiment in social capitalism, Appalachian Land & Conservation Services, LLC has since met the needs of many clients and partners across several spectrums and industry sectors, including land development, quarrying and mining, natural gas, private landowners, land trusts, investors, and others.

 

While land conservation is still a core focus and byproduct of our efforts, our day-to-day work involves a wide variety of complex real estate transactions, investments, and development. Our sophisticated services are listed on this website, and you are invited to call us for a quote, estimate, or proposal.

Read more about Josh First.

Founded in 2004 by Josh First, President and CEO, as an experiment in social capitalism, Appalachian Land & Conservation Services, LLC has since met the needs of many clients and partners across several spectrums and industry sectors, including land development, quarrying and mining, natural gas, private landowners, land trusts, investors, and others.

While land conservation is still a core focus and byproduct of our efforts, our day-to-day work involves a wide variety of complex real estate transactions, investments, and development. Our sophisticated services are listed on this website, and you are invited to call us for a quote, estimate, or proposal.
Read more about Josh First.

Contact Us

 

Appalachian is a small, nimble firm specializing in real estate projects that yield high returns in conservation value.  We are particular about the projects we work on, and are always open to new ideas.  Sometimes the most unlikely ideas work out the best!

 

Visits by appointment only.

 

To contact us:

 

Appalachian Land & Conservation Services Co., LLC

P.O. Box 5128

Harrisburg, PA 17110

Phone: (717) 232-8335

E-mail: josh@appalachianland.us

 

Contact Us

 

Appalachian is a small, nimble firm specializing in real estate projects that yield high returns in conservation value.  We are particular about the projects we work on, and are always open to new ideas.  Sometimes the most unlikely ideas work out the best!

 

Visits by appointment only.

 

To contact us:

 

Appalachian Land & Conservation Services Co., LLC

P.O. Box 5128

Harrisburg, PA 17110

Phone: (717) 232-8335

E-mail: josh@appalachianland.us

Learn More