Committed locally. Connected globally.

Deep in Woodbourne Forest, great horned owls glide through old-growth stands of hemlocks and ash; animals from minks to salamanders shelter in fields, ponds, and streams. Donated to The Nature Conservancy in April 1956 by conservationist Francis R. Cope, Jr., this is one of the Conservancy’s first preserves—and marks the start of its work in America’s Keystone State nearly half a century ago.

As its landmark 50th anniversary in Pennsylvania approaches, the Conservancy is celebrating additional milestones: the chartering of the Pennsylvania chapter 30 years ago; the 25th anniversary of Shelly Preserve, noted for its diverse habitat; and a quarter-century of growth set in motion by its first director, Bud Cook—and continuing today with new state director Bill Kunze’s plans to deepen its work across the state and expand partnerships regionally and globally.

Cook, who now directs the Northeastern Pennsylvania Office, recalls projects key to the chapter’s growth such as Tannersville Cranberry Bog, the second state preserve.

“The Cranberry” represented new capabilities in land management then, and serves as a major educational site today.

The chapter strengthened its scientific focus in 1982 when Pennsylvania adopted the Natural Heritage Program, a Conservancy-developed inventory of rare species and communities.

This provided data for setting priorities, identifying connections between habitats, and choosing sites to acquire.

To accommodate the Conservancy’s increasing scale of activities, Cook moved to the Pocono region to lead the chapter’s first venture into landscape- scale conservation.

Cary Nicholas became the new Pennsylvania state director in 1990. The challenge of this period was to begin protecting natural areas as part of a landscape rather than as separate tracts.

“We needed to understand the habitats’ requirements—and how to meet them—in a regional context,” Nicholas says. “We had to think in terms of, ‘Where does this water flow from? What land development is happening nearby?’”

This focus led to a pilot program which helped the Conservancy develop its worldwide Conservation by Design approach: the Pocono Bioreserve, a landscape of globally significant wetlands, glacial lakes and bogs, heaths, and oak barrens on the Pocono Plateau and nearby mountain ridges.

Although the Conservancy still purchased top-priority sites, strategies expanded to include partnerships with government agencies, community and conservation groups, businesses, and landowners. The chapter customized a plan for each protected habitat, such as bog turtle marshes, rare serpentine barrens, bat caves, and vernal pools.

When the Conservancy officially introduced Conservation by Design in the mid 90’s, the Pennsylvania chapter gained access to new scientific methods of measuring results.

The chapter also began to focus on natural communities such as the state’s rare, majestic forests. Over the years, increasingly sophisticated computer models and other tools have saved time and increased accuracy.

Nels Johnson, Director of Conservation Programs, notes the chapter has been at the forefront of the Conservancy’s fire and freshwater initiatives, conducting controlled burns in the Poconos, and working in systems including the 120-mile French Creek watershed—which the Conservancy considered to be to be one of the 30 most important bodies of freshwater in the Americas.

The chapter is looking forward with projects such as a forest laboratory at West Branch Wilderness, where experiments in restoring old-growth woodlands will yield insights for preservation efforts elsewhere in the state and around the world.

“We want to raise conservation in Pennsylvania to a higher level and also contribute to conservation beyond our borders,” says Kunze. “We want to be local, everywhere.”

Reprinted with permissions from Penn’s Woods, Fall/Winter 2005 newsletter of The Nature Conservancy, Pennsylvania Chapter.

12/2/2005