By Marcus Schneck

With the help of The Nature Conservancy, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will establish the nation’s newest national wildlife refuge in Pennsylvania’s Cherry Valley, just a half-mile from Interstate 80 and a morning’s drive from crowded Manhattan.

Cherry Valley sits at the edge of the Pocono Mountains, a region known for its tourism, recreation and summer homes. This pastoral valley of farmland and open space lies squarely in the path of human development in all directions.

But the valley also is home to unique ecosystems and rare species like the bog turtle. That’s why The Nature Conservancy has provided the science and the conservation expertise to protect habitat here for nearly 20 years.

Where People and Wildlife Live in Harmony

The new refuge — spanning some 20,466 acres across Monroe and Northampton counties — will be developed over many years. When complete it will protect an area that stretches west from the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and includes a portion of the Appalachian Trail and the slopes of Kittatinny Ridge, a globally important flyway for raptors and songbirds.

Cherry Valley is home to 85 rare species like the bog turtle and spreading globeflower, and calcareous fens, a vulnerable wetland type. Many more common but rarely seen creatures — like beaver, river otter, bobcats and bald eagles — make their homes here.

The new refuge will also safeguard one of the largest unprotected sections of a relatively unbroken, 400,000-acre Appalachian forest extending from Pennsylvania’s southern border to New York’s Shawangunk Mountains.

The future site of the new national wildlife refuge — only the third such refuge in Pennsylvania — also is home to the farms and homes of about 9,000 people. Many of the families have worked over generations to keep their properties in a state of minimal development and maximum open space.

“This project benefits not only rare plants and animals, but also a landscape of working farms and private homes woven throughout a beautiful valley only 75 miles from Philadelphia and Manhattan,” says Bill Kunze, Pennsylvania state director for The Nature Conservancy.

Establishment of a national wildlife refuge is a long-term conservation strategy to preserve that natural area and rural way of life in Cherry Valley. The project will mix outright land purchases from willing sellers, voluntary conservation easements, and other financial incentives and will demonstrate that people and wildlife can live in harmony.

A Project Long in the Making

The effort to bring the national wildlife refuge to Cherry Valley began nearly 20 years ago when the Conservancy and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service first worked together to protect endangered bog turtles in the area. The result was a plan — supported by elected officials and local conservation group Friends of Cherry Valley — that would protect not only habitat for the rare plants and animals, but also the rural nature of the community.

Years later, the Conservancy led a team of experts to study the feasibility of a wildlife refuge at Cherry Valley. The result was a plan, supported by elected officials and the Friends of Cherry Valley, that would protect not only habitat for the rare plants and animals, but also the rural nature of the community.

The new refuge has a head start, as 6,000 acres in the area already have been protected through past efforts by the Conservancy, government agencies and local conservation groups. The next step for the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service will be to work with partners and landowners within the refuge boundary to identify opportunities to buy land or conservation easements.

“The establishment of the Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge will now give conservation-minded landowners the additional option that has been needed to assist them in preserving their land as a legacy for future generations,” said Debra Schuler, president of the Friends of Cherry Valley.

“The vision, persistence and dedication of all these partners has created a model for conservation in heavily populated places throughout North America and around the world,” added Bud Cook, senior project manager for the Conservancy’s Pocono Mountains project. “Finding ways to preserve the biological riches of these places will be a critical test for conservation leaders in the future, and the Cherry Valley success story can help point the way.”
 

Marcus Schneck is a Nature Conservancy writer based in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Nature picture credits (top to bottom, left to right): Photo © Marcus Schneck (Cherry Valley National Wildlife Refuge); Photo © Jack Mills (American black bear cub); Map © TNC (Map of Cherry Valley).