Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape Update - Fall 2022
The team at CLC, along with our partners, have been working hard to successfully launch the SISL program. Our first six months have been packed full of planning and outreach. Here are a few of the activities we have been focused on.
Outreach and Education - Outreach events in Seymour, Bloomington, and West Boggs will be held in October to educate landowners and solicit input. We want to know the conservation priorities you have for your land. Please join us at one of the events below so we can gather feedback to inform our strategic plan and priorities better. In addition, an interactive web tool is expected to be released in 2023. This will allow landowners to identify what conservation programs they are eligible for based on a property parcel search.
Bloomington: https://SISLBloomington.eventbrite.com
West Boggs: https://SISLWestBoggs.eventbrite.com
Seymour: https://SISLSeymour.eventbrite.com
Land Conservation - The main target of our land conservation efforts will be the lands within the Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration (REPI) Program boundary around NSA Crane and the Lake Glendora Test Facility. To date, we have had meetings with several landowners about land conservation and protection projects totaling nearly 1,000 acres.
Administration - Over the past few months, we have assisted with grant submissions for projects related to forest restoration and climate resiliency. We are also developing an action plan to guide our efforts through the following year. Two main goals for 2023 include drafting a strategic plan for the implementation of the Sentinel Landscape project and submitting an application for funding the Regional Conservation Partnership Planning program. This will fund conservation projects on private lands in the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape.
Partnership - We are currently developing our leadership team with representatives from state and federal agency partners including the Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Indiana Dept. of Natural Resources. We are also meeting with other conservation organizations including our regional land trusts. One of our top priorities is to coordinate the efforts of all the land conservation groups within SISL to achieve landscape-scale conservation.
We look forward to protecting the military training mission while advancing conservation throughout the landscape.