Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape Update - Spring 2024

Greetings from the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape. I hope you all are enjoying the good things that come along with spring such as listening to the spring peepers and chorus frogs or watching your favorite spring ephemerals while hunting for morels. As we continue to work through numerous projects including agreement negotiations for our NRCS Regional Conservation Partnership Program, I wanted to take the time to share some updates with you all. Have a safe and happy Spring. Michael Spalding, SISL Program Coordinator

Partner Gathering

 On March 26 around 90 people came together at the Woolery Mill in Bloomington to learn about partnering with the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape. These individuals represent the membership and leadership of a diverse set of government, private, and volunteer organizations representing conservation, community, and military interests. The energy in the room was reflective of the passion that all these dedicated people bring to their organizations and more importantly to the betterment of their communities and natural environments. Michael Spalding gave an overview of the recently released strategic plan as well as ongoing initiatives and projects within the landscape. Todd Holman, program coordinator for the Camp Ripley Sentinel Landscape in Minnesota, gave an inspirational overview of the massive success of their program. Learning from other successful Sentinel Landscapes such as theirs will make our partnership and landscape all the more successful in the future. Through engaging new and existing partners at this event we will continue to build out our subcommittees that will guide the future of our partnership.

Strategic Plan

 The SISL Partnership finalized the outreach and educational version of our three-year strategic plan in mid-March. This plan provides background about the landscape and the partnership as well as an overview of the five goals: Protecting Military Missions, Sustainable Farming and Forestry, Restoring and Sustaining Ecosystems, People and Partnerships, and Climate Resiliency. A much longer and more in-depth technical report version is being finalized as we continue to gather data from our partners.

View Strategic Plan booklet HERE

Indiana Farmland Loss Study

 The Indiana General Assembly passed a bill authored by Kendell Culp in the 2023 session to have the Indiana State Department of Agriculture “conduct an inventory of all farmland lost in Indiana from 2010 to 2022” and “identify the primary cause of the reduction of farmland.” The findings and recommendations are due no later than July 1, 2024.

 SISL strongly supports maintaining a rural landscape. Having such a comprehensive study will lay the foundation of recognizing that we are losing rural lands to various types of development in Indiana. It will then further the cause of coming together to find meaningful ways to reverse the trend to ensure our landscape is dominated by rural uses that in turn support our military installations.

US Fish and Wildlife Service finalizes 99-year lease for Big Oaks with Army and Air Force

 Big Oaks National Wildlife refuge recently received a new 99-year permit for operating a National Wildlife Refuge overlaid on the former Jefferson Proving Ground.  The approximately 50,000-acre refuge first established in 2000 received this permit after negotiating a new Memorandum of Agreement with the Army and the Air Force in July 2020. The original permit for the refuge was for 25 years. The longer-term permit allows the refuge to better plan for the conservation and management at the site. The new agreement also gives the refuge new responsibilities for several historic structures and additional roads on the property.  The refuge surrounds the 1033-acre Jefferson Range, an Indiana Air National Guard (ANG) training facility.  The new agreement helps further define refuge management and ANG training opportunities at the site.

CILTI partners with DNR to expand Thomastown Bottoms Nature Preserve

 Thanks to CILTI and their donors to the Evergreen Fund for Nature another nature preserve is expanding! CILTI is partnering with Indiana DNR to add acreage to Thomastown Bottoms for the second time. The 15-acre addition to the existing 889-acre state-dedicated nature preserve is located in Scott County. It is part of a large block of bottomland forest on the Muscatatuck River floodplain. On the invitation of partner organizations, CILTI first purchased land adjoining the preserve in 2021. They later transferred ownership to the DNR. That is again the plan with the new addition. 

Swamp white oak, pin oak, red maple, and green ash are among the dominant trees in this bottomland forest. Native plants include cardinal flower, monkey flower, sweet Indian plantain, and many sedges. In the sloughs are found buttonbush, swamp milkweed, rice cutgrass, and featherfoil. The land provides habitat for Kirtland’s snakes and copperbelly water snakes. Both are state-endangered species.