Native Plants and Their Role in the Upper Penns Creek Watershed

Click the following link to learn about the Upper Penns Creek Watershed Natural Area Inventory sites.

Overview
A fundamental goal of many organizations and individuals is to preserve natural areas representing Pennsylvania's diverse habitat types. A comprehensive natural areas inventory is a tool that helps focus limited conservation resources on Pennsylvania's best natural areas.

As pristine land diminishes under increasing human encroachment, it is vital that we quickly locate and conserve the best remaining habitat for rare wildlife and wildflowers. Many of these plants and animals are important to us not only because of their rarity – once a species is lost, it is lost forever – but also because so many of these species may help us in our daily lives.

Natural areas serve many purposes. They make the Commonwealth an attractive place to live, provide ground and surface water protection, soil formation, tree growth, and erosion control. Natural areas are classrooms for students of forestry, agriculture, botany, zoology, and ecology. They are reservoirs of biological diversity and sanctuaries for sensitive and declining species. Finally, they are a source of beauty and inspiration – living examples of our rich natural heritage.

Inventories are a logical step in gaining full understanding of the county's and state's biological diversity. Local governments will also benefit by knowing where their most significant natural areas are found. The County Inventory effort within the state is another of the cooperative programs undertaken by the Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory (PNDI) partnership. Beginning with Lancaster and Centre Counties, The Nature Conservancy in eastern Pennsylvania and Western Pennsylvania Conservancy in western Pennsylvania have worked to complete inventories for over a decade. Nearly one half of the counties in the state have been completed and the remaining counties are slated for completion within the next five years.

County Inventories, referred to as County Natural Areas Inventories (CNAIs) in the east and County Natural Heritage Inventories (CNHIs) in the west, showcase conservation science efforts by combining and presenting information on exemplary natural areas – old growth forests, undisturbed wetlands, bird rookeries, habitats harboring rare animal and plant species throughout the state. These projects identify, map and discuss important ecological places within a county; prioritize them based upon their attributes; and provide recommendations regarding their management and protection. County Inventories are designed to inform the residents of a county about their living heritage and give them a tool to use in planning the future of their communities. County and municipal planners; federal, state and local agencies; businesses; environmental consultants; developers; local conservation organizations; and many other people and groups use these studies to help make land-use decisions within their counties and municipalities. With increasing emphasis on planning within the state, these studies will become more and more important for considering the resources of the commonwealth wisely and comprehensively.

The Pennsylvania Natural Heritage Program is a part of a network of 75 state and regional Conservation-Data Centers covering the entire U.S., ten Canadian Provinces, and 12 Latin American and Caribbean countries.

The County Natural Areas Inventory are carried out in five stages:
1. Aerial photographs of the county will be examined to find potential natural areas (areas where disturbance by humans is minimal).

2. Data will be compiled from the files of local experts: naturalists, soil conservationists, foresters, and college faculty. The Pennsylvania Natural Diversity Inventory, Pennsylvania Game Commission, Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission, and in-county agencies also furnish information pertaining to the county under study.

3. Potential natural areas will be surveyed from an aircraft to eliminate those no longer in a natural state, and to prioritize ground surveys.

4. Landowners will be contacted, and the potential natural areas will be visited on foot to eliminate those that show substantial disturbance, and determine whether any rare animals and plants or exemplary natural communities are present. Detailed information is collected on the status of species and natural communities, features which make the area significant, and the area that needs to be conserved.

5. County scorecards and survey forms keep track of the inventory's progress and summarize each area's natural features and their quality. Locations are mapped and provided to the county and local governments along with a report describing the areas identified. Funding State support for the county inventory through a variety of DCNR matching grant programs and a mix of private and public funds identified by the conservancies have allowed efforts to proceed successfully through the years. New funding arrangements through DCNR’s Community Conservation Partnerships Program, Wild Resources Conservation Fund, and DCED’s Center for Local Government Services will help to move the program into the future. Funding will now flow directly to the conservancies, giving more flexibility in beginning projects and lessening the burden on counties of applying for and administering grants. Although individual projects will garner a greater (more than 50%) proportion of state funding, the conservancies will continue to fundraise to cover the portions of funds not provided by the state. Uses County Inventories were conceived as tools to assist in planning at both the county and municipal levels and have been used effectively in that capacity. They have been incorporated into comprehensive plans, consulted to plan development projects, and utilized by conservation organizations to prioritize their work. County Inventories can actually streamline economic and infrastructure development by providing sensitive environmental information early in the planning process when adjustments can be made at little cost or delay. Additionally, these studies can be used to help in the development of recreational amenities, to promote tourism industries and to assist in community development. The utility of these studies is becoming increasingly prominent as initiatives such as Growing Greener and Growing Smarter focus attention and funds on conservation and planning throughout the state. With greater emphasis on municipal-level planning and more flexibility within the Municipalities Planning Code (MPC) through the state's Growing Smarter legislation, County Inventories will provide important insight into resources that are shared assets among municipalities and allow those local governments to be more effective in the integration of their conservation efforts.