Hocking Hills Clear Creek Connection

A singular preservation opportunity. The Arc of Appalachia has been piecing together a mosaic of protected lands in Hocking Hills, a region that is facing intense development pressure. Through 8 fee-simple acquisitions, 3 outright land donations, and 4 donated conservation easements, we have protected over 1333 acres of land in the region to date.

Recently, two contiguous properties, owned by two separate landowners, have come up for sale, totaling nearly 210 acres in size. Not only is it rare for large tracts of land to come up for sale in this region, but the fact that the largest property lies adjacent to the Arc’s four contiguous conservation easements just south of Buena Vista Road made this a preservation opportunity too significant to ignore.
Announcing the Hocking Hills to Clear Creek Connection Campaign! Both tracts play a key part in the Arc’s preservation mosaic - and are a critical component of our even grander vision of one day establishing a contiguous, 9-mile-long preservation corridor that links Clear Creek Metro with Hocking Hills State Park and Forest via Cantwell Cliffs. This is in an area with an unusual density of already existing conservation easement lands and private and public nature preserves. Each parcel we can add to the existing network of conservation lands in this region will help us reach our goal of protecting Hocking Hills’ forests and compelling landscapes, forever!

Protecting a healthy forest community. The campaign properties protect a large block of mixed deciduous forest composed of mature oaks, hickories, beech, and maples. Both will protect expansive forested wetlands filled with skunk cabbage, over a mile of pristine streams that support several species of salamanders and an abundance of aquatic insects, beaver ponds, and stunning rock formations. And the fern diversity! Even though our botanical surveys are only in their preliminary stages, 17 species of ferns have already been observed, including vast colonies of cinnamon fern.

The deep woodlands on both properties also support many migrating warbler species. including ovenbird, Louisiana waterthrush, Kentucky warbler, hooded warbler, worm-eating warbler, black and white warbler, American Redstart, and wood thrush. Clear Creek Metro Park - less than a mile north of these tracts - is a designated National Audubon Society Important Bird Area that “supports one of the largest concentrations of nesting warblers in Ohio, averaging 16-19 species annually, with the total number of breeding species reaching more than 100 annually,” according to the National Audubon Society’s website. Creating a protected corridor of healthy forests and waterways that support an abundance of insect species will further enhance the secure habitat available to many deep-forest bird species that depend upon large blocks of forest for their breeding success.
Why is funding for this campaign so important? This fall, the Arc of Appalachia intends to seek funding to acquire these tracts through the Ohio EPA’s WRRSP program. However, the WRRSP program is competitive, and a positive outcome is far from certain.  What’s more, even if our project is approved, it can easily take two years for funds to become available.  Because of this uncertainty, the Arc has promised the sellers, one of which is a sympathetic nonprofit willing to hold the 114-acre tract for the Arc temporarily, to close as quickly as possible. If, with the help of WRRSP funding, we are lucky enough to have surplus funds at the end of this campaign (however unlikely that may be), we will move excess funds into our Land Revolving Fund, the powerhouse of our land-buying muscle.

The Arc’s Land Buying Engine - the Land Revolving Fund.  Monies in the Land Revolving Fund are poised to buy properties that, due to market conditions, have to be purchased more quickly than the slow gears of fundraising permit. The Land Revolving Fund is essentially a land-buying savings account for the Arc. When properties are purchased with money loaned out of the Land Revolving Fund, the lands are temporarily held by the Arc’s nonprofit partner, Wilderness East. This gives us here at the Arc the priceless gift of time. When everything works out as it should and the Arc has successfully completed fundraising for a specific project, the monies borrowed from the Land Revolving Fund are then returned to the Fund and are ready to be used for a future project. Over the years, we have slowly increased the Fund - thereby strengthening our land-buying capacity. Obviously, if we fail to fundraise and fail to replace the loaned funds, the Arc is stalled in land-buying negotiations until the Fund is slowly built back up again. Instead of becoming stronger, we are weaker.

Please make a donation to one or all three of our stellar campaigns this year - the Hocking Hills to Clear Creek Connection campaign, Tobacco Barn Hollow campaign, AND/OR our FIVE miles on the Gauley campaign to save 1136 acres on one of the world’s most legendary rivers. OR - give to our Land Revolving Fund. Your donation will be used to buy land—and it might be used over and over again.

Frequently Asked Questions

What expenses are covered by the campaign? The campaign total of $2,414,562 includes the sale price of each property, closing costs, and a small percentage of funds (7% or less) to cover the cost of preparing the closing papers, running the campaign, and processing the gifts and checks. All of this is accomplished in-house with our Arc staff. Stewardship funds are not included in this campaign and will be raised separately. For more information on how the Arc stewards its preserves, read this article, “Stewardship Forever.”

Customize your gift! Naturally, how much you give is up to you, but we encourage you not to set a goal so high that you end up not giving. Every heartfelt donation adds magic to the campaign, whether it be $10 or $100,000.

Can I visit the property?

Is the Arc a trustworthy nonprofit? The answer is YES (and naturally we are just a wee bit biased). Our dynamic staff and committed board are all dedicated to integrity, honesty. efficiency, hard work, and transparency. Our best reviews are from our donors, nearly all of whom stay with us long-term. Many people with us when the Arc started 30 years ago are still part of our extended family of donors. For those of you interested in fiscal data, our 2024 audited financials are linked to our donation page. We invite you to read more about our mission here, and check out our recent annual news magazines - an annual celebration of the Arc’s energized land preservation achievements, combined with some truly splendid nature art. We hope you will also consider visiting us at our headquarters, the 3,000-acre Highlands Nature Sanctuary in south central Ohio, where we have 18 miles of trails and  overnight rental cabins.

Would you like to contact us? Phone our office staff at 937-365-1935, or write to arcpreserveinfo@gmail.com. Our headquarters at the Appalachian Forest Museum is hosted by REAL people (that’s amazing, right?), 7 days a week from March 15 to November 15. Between those dates our phones and emails are staffed Monday through Friday.

Help us spread the word about this campaign! Each of us is a unique networker—separated from every other human being on the planet by no more than six handshakes. Okay, that may be a slight exaggeration, but it is a lovely assertion of our interconnectedness. If you would like to share your circle of handshakes to help promote the Hocking Hills to Clear Creek Connection campaign, know that our front door is wide open to help. Here at the Arc, we delight in putting broken lands back together again and removing the fences between them. And you know what? We feel exactly the same way about people.

Something in this campaign has your name on it. Let us help you find it!