2022 Highlights: Celebrating Our Successes

Last year, TNC secured funding to continue our partner Agraria’s Regenerative Farmer Fellowship program. Now in its second year with nine participating fellows, the program provides land access, training and resources to Black, Indigenous and people of color interested in regenerative agriculture—a holistic approach that produces nutritious foods while rebuilding local communities, soil health and biodiversity.

TNC’s innovative Farmer Advocates for Conservation Program hit a significant milestone in 2022, training 18 farmers in northwest Ohio to increase the adoption of soil health practices like implementing cover crops and the 4Rs of nutrient management (right source, right rate, right time and right place). In turn, they shared their knowledge with other farmers managing a combined 212,000 acres. 

In March, TNC will celebrate the tenth anniversary of the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Certification Program. Initially developed and launched in Ohio, the program is now a multi-state effort that has led to 4R practices—applying the right fertilizer to crops at the right rate, time and in the right places—on more than 10 million acres across the United States and the province of Ontario. 4.5 million of these acres were influenced by TNC’s work in Ohio.

The Colgan Tract is a 14.3-acre property adjacent to TNC's Kitty Todd Nature Preserve within the Oak Openings region.

The entirety of the site is surrounded by wetland complexes and is a part of the historic 5,000-acre Irwin Prairie Swale. This swale is the core of high-quality wetlands found in the northern half of the Oak Opening region.

By securing and restoring this 14.3-acre property, TNC will assist in protecting the hydrology of these globally rare wetlands and expand the highest quality wet prairie remaining in the Oak Openings.  

Funded by the Ohio EPA’s Water Resource Restoration Sponsor Program, which targets the protection and restoration of high-quality streams and wetlands in the state, the Jenkins Tract adds 94 acres of aquatic habitats to the EOA Preserve, including stream-fed tributaries that feed Scioto Brush Creek.

This addition protects deciduous forest, red cedar thickets and rare dry limestone prairie that blossoms to life with rare plant species like crested coralroot orchid (Hexalectris spicata), scaly blazing star (Liatris squarrosa) and the green-star sedge (Carex viridistellata).

TNC was thrilled to acquire the 128-acre Ladd Tract in 2022. The tract will help link the 20,000-acre EOA Preserve with the 65,000-acre Shawnee State Forest in a project known as the Sunshine Corridor.

The property boasts an impressive diversity of native trees, including beech, sugar maple, tuliptree and various species of oaks and hickories along with acid-loving species like sourwood, pitch pine and mountain laurel.

The newly acquired property provides habitat for wildlife like rare black bear and bobcat and more diminutive species like cerulean and worm-eating warblers and spotted salamanders.

While TNC works to protect high-quality natural areas, other projects require work to return degraded areas back into a natural state. Such is the case with Mackenzie Run.

Portions of the property were once home to a bar, dirt racetrack and campground. TNC worked alongside many partners and volunteers to remove abandoned buildings and restore the 37-acre area to natural habitat while providing public access through the enhancement of a boat and canoe launch.

The purchase of the Mackenzie Run property also allowed TNC to conserve the last unprotected piece of the Mackenzie Run watershed, a rare cold-water creek habitat that supports an array of wildlife.

Natural climate solutions are conservation, restoration and improved land management actions that increase carbon storage or avoid greenhouse gas emissions in landscapes and wetlands across the globe. In Ohio, forests and wetlands help trap and store carbon, providing a natural solution for climate change our state. 

In 2022, TNC

• Acquired approximately 1,000 acres, including new properties that prevent future development in climate-resilient landscapes, protect high-quality tributaries to the Ohio River and expand wildlife migration routes.
• Improved management on 10,500 acres of natural areas throughout the state, which includes treatments for hemlock wooly adelgid and elongate hemlock scale—two non-native, invasive pests that threaten northeast Ohio’s rare eastern hemlock forests.
• Supported partner-led land protection efforts through letters of support for state and federal grant programs, with nearly 2,500 acres of the newly protected landscapes equipped to persist in the face of climate change due to their quality and connectivity

Climate change isn't the only threat facing endangered plants and wildlife. Habitat fragmentation and destruction due to development means that many species have difficulty finding the habitats and space they need to survive. 

But it's not just urban sprawl that threatens these spaces. Renewable energy buildout, one of the most crucial pieces of our fight against climate change, can also be a culprit in habitat degradation and threaten wildlife. 

That's why TNC is working to ensure that doesn’t happen by identifying critical habitat areas to protect from renewable energy development. Research shows that projects that don’t consider nature in the planning stages take longer, cost more and often don’t happen. We cannot fight climate change while destroying habitat for renewable energy; instead we need to thoughtfully plan our build-outs of renewable energy while still conserving important wildlife habitats and natural areas at the same time. 

Our Low Conflict Zone (LCZ) work identifies counties, cities and townships that have zoning ordinances that allow renewable energy development. Combined with completed Site Renewables Right and Mining the Sun maps, the LCZ research ensures that large scale wind and solar energy generation prioritizes community benefits and conservation outcomes by avoiding wildlife impacts and targeting installations to lands that have been impacted by future land development and mine activity. 

In 2022, we updated the LCZ study to add more sites and continued to find ways to help both communities and nature thrive while supporting renewable energy for a carbon neutral future.