Art Herrick
Long before 1970 brought us both the first Earth Day and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and before the Wilderness Act was signed into law in 1964 – Art Herrick was working to protect Ohio’s “choice bits” from the ravages of man’s unrestrained destruction.
In 1958, Dr. Herrick took two steps that would launch a half century of devoted conservation. He joined The Nature Conservancy – the young organization opened its Ohio Chapter that year. And the 50-year-old botanist accepted an assignment from the Ohio Biological Survey – to inventory the remaining important natural areas in Ohio.
At first, Herrick thought his other obligations would prevent his involvement in the fledgling conservation group. He was a botany professor at Kent State University, was working on the natural areas inventory, and a catalog of Ohio’s flora. He joined the Conservancy at the suggestion of a friend, “but I said, ‘I’m too busy; here’s my three bucks – sign me up but don’t expect to hear from me again.”
As it turned out, however, Dr. Herrick was adept at wearing more than one hat at a time. He spent the next several years traveling the state, visiting all the remaining wild places in Ohio and promoting the Conservancy to nature clubs across the state.
The end result was a small green booklet, published in 1974, with an official title: The Natural Areas Project: a Summary of Data to Date. It was widely known as “Herrick’s List” and became the foundation for conservation in Ohio.
At the same time, he watched as the rapidly-growing cities in Ohio spread across the state, leaving fewer places to take his botany students to see native plants.
“One of my great loves was local flora, and little by little, I kept seeing choice spots disappear for a new housing project, another shopping center, a new lumbering project,” recalls Dr. Herrick, now 99 and an Honorary Life Trustee of The Nature Conservancy in Ohio. “It made me ripe for being enthusiastic about conservation.”
And so Dr. Herrick, with the help of many others both inside and outside The Nature Conservancy, began working to turn many of the citations on “Herrick’s List” into permanently protected places.
Locations like Eagle Creek State Nature Preserve, and the Conservancy’s Tefft Preserve, Buzzardsroost Rock, Brown’s Lake Bog, Stillfork Swamp, and Frame Lake (now called Herrick Fen, in his honor), and many others, all benefited from his hard work
“There are a few lovely places where orchids, rare club mosses, spotted turtles, rare thrushes and warblers… can still be found,” Dr. Herrick wrote in the Ohio Conservation Bulletin in 1961. “If each of us will contribute but a bit of energy, and now and then perhaps a few pennies, we can still save many of our threatened gems.”
Thanks to Art Herrick, many of these gems are now protected for the benefit of future generations.
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