Forest Conservation

The oldest and most biologically diverse forest system in North America, the mixed hardwood forests of the Appalachian Mountains once covered nearly all of southern Ohio. This enduring system of interdependent plants and animals once harbored massive oaks and towering American chestnut trees, providing food for millions of passenger pigeons and cover for a full complement of wild animals, including wolves and elk. Burly sycamores shaded pristine rivers teeming with fish and freshwater mussels.

By the turn of the 19th century, Ohio’s pioneers had cleared nearly 19.5 million acres, more than three-quarters of our original woodlands. After centuries of over-use and abuse, Ohio’s forests are expanding once again. The state is now 30 percent forested – more than twice the coverage at the turn of the century.

And while the passenger pigeon is extinct, and the American chestnut nearly so, these forests still harbor an amazing variety of birds. Bald eagles and ospreys compete for prey over the Ohio River. Warblers, like the cerulean warbler and the American redstart, spend their winters in the tropics and risk the dangerous flight each spring to find nesting grounds in the interior of the Appalachian forest. Swallows and kingfishers vie for airspace over the rivers, while ducks and herons haunt the stream banks.

These winged emissaries of Ohio’s forests are, unwittingly, helping to secure their own future by serving as the principal attraction of a nature-based tourism industry. Bird watching is the fastest-growing hobby in the U.S., and any good birder knows that we can only preserve these colorful and fascinating creatures if we protect the lands and waters they need to survive.

Fragmentation – the breakup of the forest into smaller and smaller parcels with unrelated ownership patterns and little or no management planning – is the greatest threat to Ohio’s forests. Large parcels of unbroken forest, whether privately or publicly owned, are easier to manage efficiently for forest products, recreation, and wildlife habitat. By supporting your state and national forest lands, and programs that provide incentives to private land owners who maintain forest on their properties, you can help protect the habitat needed for these birds to flourish in Ohio.

By encouraging birders to come to southern Ohio, this partnership hopes to encourage the protection of healthy forests for future generations – of both birds and birders.

The Nature Conservancy
The mission of TNC is to preserve the plants, animals and natural communities that represent the diversity of life on Earth by protecting the lands and waters they need to survive. With programs in all 50 states and 29 countries, the Conservancy operates the largest system of privately-owned nature preserves in the world.

In Ohio, our largest preserve is in Adams County, where the Edge of Appalachia preserve system protects more than 13,000 acres of unique habitat for thousands of plant and animal species, including some that are found in few other places in the world. We also operate the Forest Ecology Project Office in the Hocking Hills. The Conservancy is working with public and private partners to encourage conservation and restoration of forests throughout Appalachian Ohio. From buying land, to influencing public policy, to encouraging compatible private enterprise, The Nature Conservancy is working with local communities to balance the community’s vitality and economic needs with the health of the forest. If you would like to know more or like to help in some way in this important mission please visit our web site www.nature.org or contact:

Pete Whan, Director of Community-based Conservation
3223 Waggoner Riffle Rd.
West Union, OH, 45693
phone: 937-544-2188
fax: 937-544-2188
pwhan@tnc.org