Defining a Natural Area
By Cliff Chapman
very high quality natural areas. Guthrie and Tribbett Woods Nature Preserves are
both excellent examples of old growth forest.
As an ecologist working for the State of Indiana, I feel very strongly about the
protection and long term management of such cathedral forests. They inspire. They
humble. They contain some of the oldest living beings we come in contact with,
predating European settlement.
But it was a very different place that inspired me as a kid growing up in the inner city
of Indianapolis. Always limited by the comfortable distance a bicycle would afford, I
often found myself on Pleasant Run Parkway which follows the meanders of Pleasant
Run, a small tributary to the White River.
Popularly known as “Stinky Creek”, the small stream was full of rounded stones left
from glacial times. I would search through the granite and quartz from Canada trying
to differentiate them from native chunks of limestone or sandstone.
Holding some sandstone I would wonder if a long, long time ago, the house I was
living in would have been on the beach. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Then I would think about the area being under an ocean creating the limestone.
Hurricanes may have swept over my neighborhood, wow! Through a child’s mind I
wondered if the tornados that came in the spring were looking for the hurricanes
from yearsand years ago.
I recently walked along Pleasant Run near Garfield Park in Indianapolis. It probably
hasn’t changed much over the last 20 or so years. Most of the trees were mulberry,
tree of heaven, or catalpa; none native to the area. I found a ground layer with
common names indicative of their origin, like Japanese hops, Japanese
honeysuckle, and Asian bush honeysuckle.
But there was also plenty of green ash and sycamore with Virginia wild rye and
smartweeds underneath. Birds sang from the trees, dragonflies zipped by,
frogs hopped in pools, and bugs skimmed along the water. And all right, it’s still a
little stinky. But it is a refuge not only for plants and wildlife it harbors, but for
people too.
While Oak Heritage Conservancy can own and manage very high quality areas, it can
also protect green spaces that are not as nice through an ecologist’s eye, but are
perhaps just as important to others.
It can also encourage municipalities and planning commissions to incorporate open
space or greenways as they grow.
I can only imagine how many generations will be inspired by the places being
protected now. Every township in southeast Indiana has a little bit of green
tucked in an urban or agricultural landscape, but we are losing these open green
areas quickly.
During the past four years, Oak Heritage Conservancy has worked with several
families towards protecting their land. It is exciting to acquire old growth forests, but I
am also enthusiastic about OHC protecting other sites, even if they have been
recently farmed, or logged. They may not have 300 year-old oak trees, but these
areas have value, as watershed protection, and they can also provide valuable habitat
for wildlife.
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