The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System

Working to preserve the rich biodiversity of America's Eastern Temperate Forest

Ask most Americans the question, "Where does wilderness most need to be protected?" and they will answer, "In the West."

We think it is high time we romance the East! For those of us who care about the living world, it would be a tragic mistake to think that it is too late to save the rich biodiversity of the Eastern temperate forest.

Cradle of Biodiversity. Witness these facts: Just three hundred years ago the Eastern forest was mostly intact and still home to what is considered hallmark icons of wilderness: mountain lion, elk, otters, wolf, and rattlesnakes. These forests remain some of the wettest ecosystems on the mainland, and their high species diversification mirror this climatic fecundity. The only forests boasting higher plant diversity are the planet's tropical rainforests. Our Eastern Forest's rivers rank top in the entire temperate world  for fish, mollusk, crayfish, aquatic insect, and salamander diversity. For example, just one high-quality watershed in Tennessee has more fish species that ALL of Europe. The Great Mississippi once drained a great forest that was once nearly 2000 miles across and deep. Its many tributaries harbored over 300 species of fresh-water mussels, whereas the Western half of North America has less than seven species. When English people began immigrating to the Eastern shores of North America in the 1600's, they discovered a nearly unbroken forest that supported nearly 50 species of oaks. Back in their homeland of the British Isles, they had known only one. When these same English people tried to found their first enduring colonies, they discovered the Atlantic shoreline so densely populated with Native American villages  that they had difficulty finding a safe harbor that didn't have the tell-tale sign of campfire smoke. The East, not so very long ago, was nearly as close to Eden as one could find on earth -- a rich cornucopia of bio-diversity in land and in its waters that sustained large numbers of humanity and wildlife alike. We should mention that it is largely in part to the Native American's recent co-existence with a functionally intact forest eco-system (a situation practically unique in the temperate world) that we still have a chance to save the living wealth of the Eastern Forest today.

Is this a natural heritage we would choose to give up on?

The World's Last Chance. Planet Earth has fourteen basic vegetative expressions, one of which is the temperate broadleaf forest. To understand the world significance of this major biome, take a look at the world map where the original biome was once distributed. THE TEMPERATE BROADLEAF BIOME IS DOCUMENTED AS THE MOST DISTURBED OF THE 14 BIOMES IN THE WORLD. Of the three major centers for the temperate forest in the world -- Eastern North America, Europe, and eastern China -- only in North America has the original vegetative covering not been essentially eradicated. In the place of the once unbroken forests that once covered Europe and Eastern Asia now stand cities and villages, agricultural lands, and managed low-diversity "lumber crop" forests. The only natural deciduous forests that remain in China and Europe for the most part are restricted to "islands" in designated national and local parks.

Unlike the Old World, the original temperate forests of North America were still intact just a few hundred years ago.  North America is therefore the last chance in the world to save a significant land base for the native temperate broadleaf forest. Yet, our window of opportunity is rapidly closing. As our modern population continues to soar and our lifestyles become ever-weightier on our resources, we have perhaps only a few decades before our North American landscape is indistinguishable from the densely populated, highly managed landscape of Europe. Then what was once the vast and majestic American wilderness will be forever gone in the East. True, the East has taken severe losses; (note: one third of the 300 species of freshwater mussels are either extinct or imperiled) but not so much that we need to lose hope in saving a substantial percentage of the diversity that remains.

Aren't our state, national, and private forests enough? Saving the forest's biodiversity is more than just saving the trees. Much of the diversity in the temperate forest biome lives in the wildlife and on the delicate forest floor -- flowers and ferns who usually have only a few weeks in the year to efficiently photosynthesize before tree leaves emerge in the spring and block out the sunlight. Most of our native understory plants can not survive soil impaction, soil loss, too much sun resulting from a heavy timber removal, or too much shade created by the young even-aged forest and blackberry tangles that follows a heavy cut. To accomplish preservation of temperate forests, we need to establish significant masses of protected forest land that is left undisturbed. We need our well-managed public forests in the East for their contribution to diversity, their large acreages of forest, and for their relatively judicious conservation methods for lumber removal compared to what often happens on privately owned-forest cuts. Some species, such as turkey, deer, and hooded warblers actually respond positively to forest canopies opened after a cut. But for the sake of bio-diversity we ALSO need forests that are simply not cut at all. It is in the latter that the East is so sadly lacking.

Salamanders, representing the highest animal biomass in an eastern forest community, are particularly sensitive to disruption caused by timber cutting. In our relatively wet Eastern climate, logging roads often become deeply eroded, losing valuable topsoil and becoming inviting highways for invading alien species. Disrupted forest soils on these logging roads pour thousands of tons of dirt into the streams and creeks every year, soil that was thousands of years in the making. The resulting siltation is at cross-purposes to the goal of providing the pure waters required by most of our fresh-water mussels and fish species. Signature Eastern Forest birds, such as the rapidly declining Cerulean warbler and Eastern Wood thrush, need large expanses of intact, un-fragmented  forests to have high success rates in raising their young. Small isolated woodlots can not long-term sustain many woodland bird, reptile and amphibian species. To preserve biodiversity for all of our native forest species, we need to supplement the relatively common woodlands that still exist all across the East (young, disturbed, rapidly growing forests that are timbered) with a quilting of restored old-growth forests in large, undisrupted preserves. Today in the East, old-growth forests are virtually non-existent. The aim of the Arc of Appalachia Preserve System is to buy back the forest fragments, reunite them, and bring the old-growth forests back to the Eastern landscape. Literally, we need to re-member wilderness in the East.

The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System is working in southern Ohio in the five southern most counties. A look at the picture to the left shows where our eleven preserve regions are located. A look a the aerial map at the top of the page shows the importance of the Arc's overall location --  the region with the most intact forest canopy and the highest native species count in all of Ohio. Note the brown landscape to the west of the Arc lands, where the forest has been nearly completely cleared and replaced by agricultural lands on rich glaciated soils. In Ohio 99.9% of the original forest has been cut, and in most places, it continues to be cut as frequently as every 40 years, 11% of an oak's total expected lifespan; essentially removing from the forest landscape old nesting trees for wildlife, and elders for seed production.

The Arc works to accomplish forest preservation by buying forested land in key botanical "hotspots" and then slowly expanding those forests in size as funds for land procurement allow, allowing the woodlands to naturally age and diversify. In addition to forest preservation, the Arc also preserves important associated Eastern eco-systems such as wetlands and native prairies.

The Arc of Appalachia Preserve System was founded in 1995. Our mission includes not only forest preservation, but the teaching of forest literacy and stewardship ethics. Since our inception we have raised over ten million dollars. 75% of our money has come from private donations and the remaining 25% from grants. We currently steward eleven preserve regions, the largest which is the Highlands Nature Sanctuary at 2000 acres.

b  The Arc of Appalachia ~ Ohio's Fertile Crescent

b  List of Land Acquisitions -- links to nature preserve information

b  The Homelands --Remembering the Arc's Indigenous Past

b  Exploring the "Ark's" Natural History

b  Linking Up: Moving Forward Together