Rock Formations at the Emerald Forest Corridor properties. Photo by Lewis Ulman
CONNECTION!!
Clear Creek Metro Parks
& Hocking Hills State Park
Building a one-mile-long preservation corridor between two immense conservation lands - purchasing two new parcels!
Total Project Cost: $2,414,562
Balance: $1,765,047
Stewardship Funds critically needed
Oh, so close! Hocking Hills is inarguably the repository of the most stunningly beautiful landscapes in all of Ohio, attracting millions of tourists annually. Currenty, the two largest forest blocks in Hocking Hills are the 5300-acre contiguous Clear Creek Metro Park and the 11,500-acre Hocking Hills State Park and Forest, a more discontinuous mosaic. Where these two parks come the closest, they are separated by only one mile of privately-owned land.
Picking up the puzzle pieces. A few years ago, the Arc of Appalachia began buying and protecting wildlands in Hocking County - in part to mitigate for the region’s intense development of cabins and residential retreats. To date, we have purchased eight properties, accepted three land donations, and hold four conservation easements, totalling 1333 acres.
An arc of connection! It was only a few months ago that we looked at a map of our progress and recognized that - by sheer synchronicity - the Arc of Appalachia was already close to connecting the dots between Clear Creek Metro Park and Hocking Hills State Park, via 1055-acre Cantwell Cliffs State Park! See map below.
Recently, when two new, large parcels of land came up for sale in the corridor , a new campaign was born for land we refer to as The Emerald Forest! The Emerald Forest, vitally strengthens the width and continuity of our envisioned connection corridor. Imagine the benefits to wildlife a protected corridor will bring! Scroll down for more details, and click on Hocking Hills Forever to view maps of all of our preservation work in Hocking County.
The 210 acres that compose the Emerald Forest boast pristine streams with clean sandy substrates, beaver ponds, striking rock formations, extensive wetlands of skunk cabbage, and vast colonies of wet-loving ferns. This preservation opportunity is simply breathtaking!
Protecting a healthy forest community. The Emerald Forest is a large block of mixed deciduous forest composed of mature oaks, hickories, beech, and maples. The landscape boasts expansive forested wetlands filled with skunk cabbage, and over a mile of pristine streams that support several species of salamanders and an abundance of aquatic insects. A large beaver pond dominates one of the parcels, and both properties shelter stunning rock formations. And, oh my, the fern diversity! Even though our botanical surveys are only in their preliminary stages, 17 species of ferns have already been observed, including vast colonies of cinnamon ferns which, in the wetlands, grow chest high.
For the Birds. The deep woodlands of the Emerald Forest support many migrating warbler species. including ovenbird, Louisiana waterthrush, Kentucky warbler, hooded warbler, worm-eating warbler, black and white warbler, American Redstart, and wood thrush. Clear Creek Metro Park - to which these tracts nearly connect - is a designated National Audubon Society Important Bird Area that “supports one of the largest concentrations of nesting warblers in Ohio. The Bird Area averages 16-19 warbler species annually, with the total number of breeding species topping over 100 species” according to the National Audubon Society’s website. Creating a protected corridor of healthy forests and waterways that support an abundance of insect species will further enhance the secure habitat available to many deep-forest bird species that depend upon large blocks of forest for their breeding success.
Please make a donation. Buying Land is a gift that keeps giving forever.
Frequently Asked Questions
What expenses are covered by the campaign?
The campaign total of $2,414,562 includes the sale price of each property, closing costs, and a small percentage of funds (7% or less) to cover the cost of preparing the closing papers, running the campaign, and processing the gifts and checks. All of this work is accomplished in-house with Arc staff. Stewardship funds are not included in this campaign and will be fundraised separately. For more information on how the Arc stewards its preserves, read the article, “Stewardship Forever.”
Customize your gift!
Naturally, how much you give is up to you, but we encourage you not to set a goal so high that you end up not giving. Every heartfelt donation adds magic to the campaign, whether it be $10 or $100,000.
Can I visit the property?
We are committed to a lofty dream that is well worth investing in. Everyone who knows Hocking Hills knows how cringeworthy its crowded trails can be at the peak of the season. At some of the most popular state park destinations, like Ash Cave and Old Man’s Cave, visitors can find themselves walking in a continuous line of people. There is a lot to be said for sites this well-loved, and for the exercise and beauty afforded to tens of thousands of people. However, not only are these numbers hard on the wildland communities the parks are called on to protect, but it’s challenging in such an environment for hikers to get their soul in an exalted state, or their ears focused on bird calls and the precious ambient sound of silence.
Building a Connector Trail. One of the Arc’s mission calls for immersing people in nature and cultivating communion and reconnection. We think this can happen, even in Hocking County (see Resilience and Honeycomb Rocks trails)! Now imagine when the day comes that we connect Hocking Hills and Clear Creek Metro with a continuous corridor of lands that are owned outright by the Arc of Appalachia - land to which we have full access (as opposed to conservation easements). Then, if we can find funding for installation and maintenance, it is feasible that we could build one long trail, or maybe even a loop trail, that links these two parks! Such a trail would enable solitary hiking experiences in the heart of Hocking Hills, simply because the trail would be too long for casual visitors. The trail would be a significant addition to the mosaic of trail experiences available to the public in Hocking Hills.
Why is funding for this campaign so important?
This fall, the Arc of Appalachia intends to seek funding to acquire these tracts through the Ohio EPA’s WRRSP program. However, the WRRSP program is competitive, and a positive outcome is far from certain. And it’s slow -often taking two years to consummate. That’s too slow to secure these properties, so if we want them, we have to buy them now and do it with private funding. If, with the help of WRRSP funding, we are fortunate enough to have surplus funds at the end of this campaign (however unlikely that may be), we will reinvest excess funds into our Revolving Land Fund, the backbone of our land-buying activities. This Fund, so essential for the Arc to buy and hold lands long enough to fundraise for them, has been decimated to support THREE ambitious campaigns this summer: the Five Miles on the Gauley, Doubling Tobacco Barn Hollow, and Building a Hocking Hills Preservation Corridor. If we fail to fundraise enough money to restore our Revolving Land Fund, the Arc will be stalled for any land-buying negotiations. Instead of becoming stronger, we would become weaker, helplessly watching premier properties hit the market, only to be swept up by developers. These three campaigns simply must succeed.
Is the Arc a trustworthy nonprofit? The answer is YES (and naturally, we are just a wee bit biased). Our dynamic staff and committed board are all dedicated to integrity and honesty, efficiency, hard work, and transparency. Our best reviews are from our donors, nearly all of whom stay with us long-term. Many people with us when the Arc started 30 years ago are still part of our extended family of donors. For those of you interested in fiscal data, our 2024 audited financials are linked to our donation page. We invite you to read more about our mission here, and check out our recent annual news magazines - an annual celebration of the Arc’s energized land preservation achievements, combined with some truly splendid nature art. We hope you will also consider visiting us at our headquarters, the 3,000-acre Highlands Nature Sanctuary in south central Ohio, where we have 18 miles of trails and overnight rental cabins.
Would you like to contact us? Phone our office staff at 937-365-1935, or write to arcpreserveinfo@gmail.com. Our headquarters at the Appalachian Forest Museum is hosted by REAL people (that’s amazing, right?), 7 days a week from March 15 to November 15. Between those dates our phones and emails are staffed Monday through Friday.
Help us spread the word about this campaign! Each of us is a unique networker—separated from every other human being on the planet by no more than six handshakes. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but it is a lovely assertion of our interconnectedness. If you would like to share your circle of handshakes to help promote the Hocking Hills to Clear Creek Connection campaign, know that our front door is wide open to help. Here at the Arc, we delight in putting broken lands back together again and removing the fences between them. And you know what? We feel exactly the same way about people.
Something in this campaign has your name on it. Let us help you find it!