From Trails to Streams: WPC and Stewardship
Easement-Protected Henderson Farm in Fairfield Township, Pa.
For more than eight decades, the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy has protected some of the region’s most exceptional places. However, protection is often just the beginning of the Conservancy’s commitment to a project.
WPC’s Land Stewardship Program is responsible for monitoring and managing lands owned by the Conservancy or subject to WPC conservation easements. Currently, this entails over 183 properties throughout 29 counties of the state. This obligation to monitor and manage not only protects the Conservancy’s long-term interests, but is an important part of its accredited land trust status.
Snow Trillium (Trillium nivale)
The stewardship program’s work on Conservancy-owned properties includes a wide range of projects, including planting native wildflowers, grasses and trees; controlling exotic invasive species; restoring streams and wetlands; building and maintaining hiking trails; and cleaning up litter and dump sites. Much of this work is completed with the help of a dedicated corps of volunteer land stewards. Over the last few years, staff and volunteers have tackled large, long-term projects, such as the renovation of trails on the Bear Run Nature Reserve in Fayette County and the planting of thousands of mixed hardwood trees at a former mine site in Elk County owned by the Conservancy.
“In addition to the trails at Bear Run, the Conservancy has completed a lot of great projects recently, such as removing a number of old and derelict structures from our properties and restoring the properties with trees and shrubs,” said Shaun Fenlon, vice president of Land Conservation.
WPC also considers the owners of properties under conservation easement to be valuable partners. Once an easement – a unique and voluntary legal agreement that limits future land use while keeping the property in private hands – is established, the staff works with the landowner to ensure the land’s conservation values are protected forever. Even if the property changes hands, the Conservancy ensures that the terms and intent of the easement are honored.
The broad traditional definition of the word “steward” – to manage or look after – covers many aspects of the Conservancy’s work, including the ongoing stewardship of protected properties and WPC’s work to protect and restore Western Pennsylvania’s creeks, streams and rivers. WPC’s urban forestry and community gardens and greenspace work includes stewardship through the maintenance of trees, gardens and other green infrastructure elements. The Natural Heritage staff provides ecological stewardship to habitats of threatened and endangered species. And, of course, the Conservancy cares for Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater.