What Does Land Conservation Mean?

The Nature Conservancy’s Long Pond Preserve complex in western Monroe County, Pennsylvania, includes the Hauser Nature Center and the nearby Long Pond Barrens. Situated along the southeastern edge of the Pocono plateau, the preserve contains a wide variety of wildlife habitats including bogs, swamps, barrens, oak forest, boreal forest and northern hardwood forest.

The Dick & Nancy Eales Preserve at Moosic Mountain provides sweeping views of Pennsylvania’s northeastern corner and represents one of the best locations in the northeastern U.S. for ridge-top heath barrens.

Easily accessible from Harrisburg, Philadelphia and New York City, Moosic Mountain is packed with outdoor opportunities.

The Florence Shelly Preserve boasts fields, woodlands, streams and a glacial pond surrounded by a floating bog. An easy-access boardwalk begins near the parking lot on Little Ireland Road and meanders through the hemlock forest to a lookout over the marsh.

Named for Wilkes-Barre naturalist Thomas Darling, Jr., this preserve attracts interest in every season. For more than 20 years, The Nature Conservancy has managed this largely wooded and undeveloped landscape. Together with partners, TNC continues to seek opportunities to acquire additional property to expand the preserve, enhancing opportunities for outdoor recreation and protecting the natural legacy of this region.

In 2017, The Nature Conservancy purchased roughly 350 acres of Hamer Woodlands at Cove Mountain, representing TNC’s first nature preserve in central Pennsylvania along the Kittatinny Ridge.

In February 2021, the PA/DE chapter closed on a land deal to expand Hamer Woodlands at Cove Mountain. The purchase of 1,200 acres of land adjacent to the existing preserve quadruples its size and—most importantly—fills a gap between existing conservation lands, creating a 14-mile stretch of protected land along the Kittatinny Ridge, helping to ensure that this chain of forests in one of the most important landscapes for climate adaptation in Pennsylvania and the Appalachians will remain connected, healthy and more climate resilient into the future.

Adjoined by state conservation lands and in close proximity to Hyner View State Park (a popular hang-gliding area), The Nature Conservancy's West Branch Forest Preserve is nestled within an area many consider to be a recreational paradise.

In addition to a variety of outdoor recreational activities, visitors to the preserve have an opportunity to witness all of the activities implemented at a sustainably managed, working forest. These include vegetation control, mowing, prescribed fire, herbicide application, warm season grasses, enrichment plantings, wood biomass harvests and a one-acre hybrid American chestnut research orchard.

This treasured pocket of the South Mountain landscape, now part of Kings Gap State Park and Environmental Education Center, serves as a demonstration site for TNC's efforts to conserve the area’s unique natural heritage, especially vernal pools—temporary springtime wetlands that host and nourish globally rare salamanders, frogs and other woodland species before drying up by summertime. Together with our partners at the state park and several local landowners, we are working to safeguard these habitats that are vital to the health and natural heritage of this Central Pennsylvania landscape.

Overlooking the town of Altoona, TNC's Brush Mountain Preserve is part of a large, intact mix of oak and hickory woodlands considered to be a high priority within the Central Appalachian landscape.

The preserve’s large, intact forest serves as the southern terminus of the Bald Eagle Ridge Important Bird Area, a significant migratory route for raptors and neotropical migrants. Other species that can be found here include wild turkey, black bear, state-endangered Allegheny woodrat and timber rattlesnakes, a species of conservation concern in Pennsylvania.