Agraria Journal Winter 2021

Conservationists sometimes frame wildlife management in terms of “Keystone Species” and “Umbrella Species.” The idea is straightforward enough: A keystone is found at the top of a stone arch. Without it, the arch will not stand. Similarly, a keystone species is one that is essential to the continued function of its ecosystem. Likewise, an umbrella protects all that is below it. Ergo, when you protect an umbrella species you protect the entire ecosystem. Water resources for an ecosystem can be thought of as both the keystone and the umbrella. If you lose the water resources, you lose the entire ecosystem that depends on it. If you protect the water resources, you protect the entire ecosystem. And yet, water is often peripheral to our thinking about protecting habitats. When you think about our country’s parks and preserves, rarely (dare I say never?) is the preserve boundary designed to encompass an entire watershed. Lots of parks protect mountains or caves or deserts or maybe, as is the case with Glen Helen, a thin stretch of land a half mile wide, by four miles long. Preserve boundaries tend to be political, or visual, or geographic. I cannot think of a single example where a park boundary is defined by its watershed. Ultimately, what this means is that water flows into protected lands upstream from who-knows-where, and exits protected lands downstream to who-knows-where. In the early 1960s, one of my predecessors, Ken Hunt, had a vision for better protecting the land around Glen Helen and its neighbors, John Bryan State Park and Clifton Gorge State Nature Preserve. Ken and his co-conspirators imagined a triangle bordered by State Route 343, Clifton Road, and what is now the Little Miami Bike Trail. They named this triangle the “Country Commons.” The idea was that, if all of the property owners within this triangle would be willing to accept a conservation easement on their property, it would create a protected area that would safeguard Glen Helen and the state lands from encroachment and “conserve open space and natural beauty for the use, inspiration, and enjoyment of all men.” For 60 years, we more or less pursued this vision. When the Glen Helen Association acquired Camp Greene from the Girl Scouts of Western Ohio, it was with the idea that not only was the former camp adjacent to Glen Helen on the Little Miami River, it was also a core (and vulnerable) parcel within the Country Commons. A couple years later, we were able to work with the children of Barbara and David Case to acquire their wonderful 46-acre homestead off State Route 343. It was a hugely important parcel for us because of its proximity to the Outdoor Education Center; it was also within the Country Commons. Then, we turned our attention to the Sutton Farm just north of the Glen, across the road from the Outdoor Education Center. Owned by the Village of Yellow Springs, much of the land was leased to an area farmer who annually planted a soybean crop using conventional growing techniques. We liked the idea of instead managing that land as forest contiguous to the Glen, but what really interested us in the property was that Birch Creek flowed through the Sutton Farm before crossing under the road and into the Glen. If we could better protect a longer stretch of Birch Creek, then we could ensure cleaner water and healthier habitats along the creek. Now, instead of thinking about a protected area bordered by roads, we for the first time gave consideration to what the Glen’s watershed looked like. We honestly were not prepared for what we learned. The attached map shows the Sutton Farm outlined in red and the Birch Creek watershed in blue. At the lower left, you see the village of Yellow Springs, Ohio, with the forests of Glen Helen immediately to its right. Analyzing the map, we realized that only about 8% of the Birch Creek watershed is Thinking Big to Protect Water and Habitat 30 AGRARIA JOURNAL 2021 BY NICK BOUTIS