Western Pennsylvania Conservancy Protects 1,495 Acres of Elk County Forestland within the PA Wilds for Moshannon State Forest – Cyber Tech

Press launch shared by Western Pennsylvania Conservancy August 28, 2024. Picture courtesy of the Conservancy. 

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy introduced right now the everlasting safety of a 1,495-acre forested property for looking, fishing, climbing and different leisure alternatives in Benezette Township, Elk County. The property was instantly transferred to the Pennsylvania Division of Conservation and Pure Sources to turn into open to the general public as a brand new addition to Moshannon State Forest, bolstering the area’s local weather resilience.

This property, a part of the Bennetts Valley space within the coronary heart of Pennsylvania’s huge elk vary within the Pennsylvania Wilds, consists of a mixture of hilltops, forested steep slopes and a big riparian space alongside the Bennett Department Sinnemahoning Creek. Johnson Run, categorised by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Fee as a Class A Wild Trout stream, flows by means of the property. The property can be inside one of many state’s largest blocks of unfragmented forest; massive related forests retailer massive quantities of carbon and assist fight the results of local weather change.

The Conservancy has been defending and restoring land within the Bennett Department hall since 2008, with greater than 8,300 acres protected in Bennetts Valley. Bennetts Valley is an anchor space of the PA Wilds Conservation panorama, and is within the coronary heart of Pennsylvania’s elk vary and residential of the Elk Nation Customer Heart.

Many of those acquisitions have been conveyed to the state as additions to forests or recreation lands, nevertheless, the Conservancy continues to personal the 1,465-acre Bennett Department Forest for forest administration, restoration and recreation, and the 24-acre Dr. Colson E. Blakeslee Memorial Recreation Space in Elk County, which hosts a mature floodplain forest and offers public entry to the creek for fishing. Plus the Conservancy’s watershed conservation program has completed large-scale deserted mine drainage work on Cherry Run, a tributary to Bennett Department.

“This can be a fantastic and key addition to Bennetts Valley, a panorama that has been a precedence for the Conservancy for greater than a decade, and such a wonderful vacation spot space throughout the PA Wilds,” says Tom Saunders, president and CEO of the Conservancy. “This additional continues our mission to guard land in Bennett Department Valley to assist recreation, enhance water high quality or water sources, and safeguard habitat for elk and different native wildlife.”

By the Appalachian Landscapes Safety Fund, the Open House Institute offers capital grants to conservation initiatives throughout the globally vital Appalachian area that tackle each the biodiversity disaster and local weather change. “OSI is proud to have contributed to defending this very important property,” says Invoice Rawlyk, OSI’s Mid-Atlantic senior program supervisor.

“Past this land’s many attributes for recreation and biodiversity, conservation of the property will mitigate the impacts of local weather change. Its complicated landscapes and microclimates assist various habitats that permit the motion of plant and animal species in response to a altering local weather. Managed as a part of Moshannon State Forest’s massive, intact pure panorama, the forest will retailer carbon into the longer term, offsetting and moderating carbon emissions from human actions,” Rawlyk provides.

Since 1983, the Conservancy has acquired and transferred greater than 5,000 acres to DCNR for Moshannon State Forest.

Conservation of this forestland was made doable due to grants from DCNR Bureau of Forestry and thru OSI’s Appalachian Landscapes Safety Fund, which helps the safety of climate-resilient lands for wildlife and communities. This fund is made doable with a lead grant from the Doris Duke Basis and with important assist from the Lyndhurst Basis, Richard King Mellon Basis, William Penn Basis, Riverview Basis, Tucker Basis, Lookout Basis, Footprint Basis, in addition to different foundations and people who perceive the vital position that land safety performs in addressing the threats of local weather change.

The Western Pennsylvania Conservancy (WPC) enhances the area by defending and restoring distinctive locations. A non-public nonprofit conservation group based in 1932, WPC has helped set up 11 state parks, conserved greater than 285,000 acres of pure lands, protected or restored greater than 3,000 miles of rivers and streams, and assessed hundreds of wildlife species and their habitats. The Conservancy owns and operates Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage Listing and symbolizes folks dwelling in concord with nature. As well as, WPC enriches our area’s cities and cities by means of 130 neighborhood gardens and different inexperienced areas and hundreds of bushes which can be planted with the assistance of greater than 7,000 volunteers. The work of the Conservancy is achieved by means of the assist of greater than 10,000 members. For extra info, go to WaterLandLife.org or Fallingwater.org.

Concerning the Open House Institute
The Open House Institute (OSI) is a nationwide chief in land conservation and efforts to make parks and different protected land extra welcoming for all. Since 1974, OSI has partnered within the safety of greater than 2.5 million at-risk and environmentally delicate acres within the jap U.S. and Canada. OSI’s land safety promotes clear air and water, improves entry to recreation, offers wildlife habitat, strengthens communities, and combats local weather change, whereas curbing its devastating results.

Media Contact: Carmen Bray, Senior Director of Communications ([email protected])