Stewarding the Gorge: How TRGT Integrates the Ranger Remote Monitoring Platform to Scale Conservation

The Tennessee River Gorge Trust (TRGT) has spent more than 40 years protecting one of the Southeast’s most ecologically diverse and significant landscapes. Located just outside Chattanooga, Tennessee, the Tennessee River Gorge spans approximately 27,000 acres along a 26-mile stretch of the Tennessee River, cutting through the Cumberland Plateau. TRGT has protected more than 8,000 acres of this terrain and stewards a total of 17,000 acres, which is home to a wide range of native plant and animal species and diverse forest types. 

Established in the early 1980s, TRGT began with a mission “to conserve a healthy Tennessee River Gorge for generations to come.” While TRGT’s commitment to land acquisition and protection continues, the organization’s work has expanded meaningfully over the past several decades. 

Today, TRGT’s efforts go well beyond traditional land protection. The organization actively stewards more than 17,000 acres while improving public access, engaging the community, and conducting environmental research. In the last decade alone, they’ve developed trails, campsites, climbing areas, and are currently working on a new river access point. Their team also operates a bird observatory and partners with botanists, foresters, and other experts to study the ecological health of the gorge. 

Embracing Remote Monitoring to Scale Stewardship 

Managing a landscape of this size through fieldwork alone is possible and for many conservation organizations, it remains the foundation of stewardship. However, tools like remote monitoring offer valuable advantages. 

In 2022, TRGT became an early adopter of Skytec’s Ranger platform, a remote monitoring solution designed to help organizations detect and analyze environmental changes at scale. Now in their third year of using Ranger, TRGT has integrated the platform into its long-term stewardship strategy. 

Ranger is a subscription-based service that leverages satellite imagery and geospatial data to help teams monitor vast or inaccessible areas, flag potential disturbances, and make data-informed decisions. It integrates seamlessly with GIS workflows and complements traditional fieldwork. 

Using Ranger to Support Stewardship 

As Eliot Berz, Executive Director of TRGT, shared, the organization works with a range of scientific experts to understand ecological conditions. 

Remote monitoring with Ranger helps “keep our finger on the pulse” of the landscape between field visits, Berz explained. 

With Ranger, TRGT can monitor changes across its protected lands—no matter how remote or rugged—without always needing to be on site. This added visibility helps the team prioritize field visits, detect potential issues early, and focus staff time where it matters most. Ranger helps:  

• Scale oversight across thousands of acres 
• Reduce the need for constant in-person site checks 
• Highlight areas that need closer attention 
• Support faster and more informed responses to change 

“If we relied solely on patrolling our boundary lines on foot, our field staff would be doing nothing but walking boundary lines,” said Berz. “And we’re responsible for a lot more than that—it’s just not feasible.” 

This capability is especially valuable in rugged or hard-to-reach areas of the gorge and helps TRGT prioritize where to send staff, complement on-the-ground fieldwork, and stay ahead of any emerging issues. Whether they’re responding to a potential encroachment or aligning remote sensing data with field research, the value of monitoring at scale has been clear. 

“Ranger has allowed us to really keep a watchful eye on our property boundaries in a way we’ve never been able to do before,” Berz continued. 

That added layer of visibility has been especially valuable for easement monitoring. In one instance, Ranger helped the team detect land clearing activity on a property shortly after a site visit- something that otherwise could have remained undiscovered until the following year.  

Robert Windham, TRGT Land Management and Access Coordinator, echoed the importance of Ranger in filling critical resource gaps. 

“It’s been valuable not just for us, but for our partners. I’ve been able to notify state foresters about issues we’ve caught through Ranger.” 

“It’s incredibly helpful to have those extra eyes in the sky on our properties basically at all times,” Windham continued. 

Conservation at Scale 

TRGT’s use of Ranger illustrates how conservation organizations can integrate geospatial technology to enhance their core strategies. It’s a practical solution for managing complex and remote areas, and one that aligns with TRGT’s values: protecting land, fostering public access, and applying science to conservation. 

For organizations looking to modernize stewardship practices or expand their capacity, TRGT’s experience shows how remote monitoring platforms like Ranger help “Monitor What Matters,” empowering teams to focus on the areas and actions that make the greatest impact.