Gov. Daniels honors Land Trust

The natural world provides us with our character, food and home. Next week, a group tasked with preserving Indiana’s land will be honored for its environmental contributions.

On Feb. 10, Gov. Mitch Daniels proclaimed the week of Feb. 22 to 28 Sycamore Land Trust Week in honor of the group’s 20th anniversary and because the SLT “sustains Indiana’s natural heritage of biological and geological wealth, honoring Indiana’s culture and the values of its citizens,” according to the proclamation.

The Sycamore Land Trust has grown from a volunteer-run preservation of 500 acres in Monroe County in 1990 to a nationally recognized organization that protects 5,500 acres of southern Indiana land.

“If we can protect 20,000 by 2020 we can literally change the natural history of the state,” said Executive Director Christian Freitag, noting that would be funded by area residents.

That philosophy keeps the SLT going: the people who live here should protect the land themselves.

“If the people care about the place they live, then people have to stand up and work to protect it,” Freitag said. “Land Trusts here and around the country are evidence that people care about their homes.”

Members of the SLT contribute either land or financial support to the trust, and in addition to taking ownership of the land, the SLT helps landowners protect their own land from unnecessary community development.

Carolyn Waldron, director of the Environmental Law Program at the Maurer School of Law, said concern for the global environment should not overshadow the need for protection at a local level.

“I would encourage all of those who are thinking about global problems and participating in a global sense to recommit themselves to work locally,” Waldron said.

Members have expressed the need for the support to be private. Freitag characterizes the SLT as apolitical and business-minded.

“We can’t expect government to protect all the land that needs to be protected,” said IU English professor and SLT member Scott Russell Sanders. “I think it’s vital that there be a local land trust like the SLT that is supported by people who live in the region who care about nature and other species and who are advocates for natural lands.”

Sanders discussed individual benefits to protecting our natural landscapes.

“We also need to provide natural lands for our own physical and psychological and spiritual health because we are creatures of the earth,” Sanders said. “We need to be able to sustain our connections to the earth.”