YORK, Pa. — Driving around southcentral Pennsylvania, you'll see development everywhere. Whether it's warehouses or homes, land that used to serve as farms or wildlife often gets gobbled up for industrial or residential use.
"York and Lancaster's populations are growing," said Phil Wenger, outgoing president and CEO of the Lancaster Conservancy. "As a result of that, places like this simply won't exist 100 years from now."
Such as the recently acquired Hellam Hills Nature Preserve in Hellam Township, York County. Purchased in 2017 by the Lancaster Conservancy, the group's work to foster the land now stretches from the preserve through two other acquisitions in recent memory: Roundtop and Wizard Ranch.
"We took a risk," Wenger said. "We said this land along the river here is so beautiful and so special that we ought to go ahead and protect it."
The Lancaster Conservancy has now purchased, protected and preserved more than 7,000 acres on both the Lancaster and York County sides of the Susquehanna River. In fact, Wenger jokes that the organization should be renamed "The Conservancy" as their acres grow on the York County side.
"This idea that we protect land is just essential to who we are," Wenger said.
The preservation of the Hellam Hills Nature Preserve, according to Wenger, saved the last large forest remaining in a triangular region between York, Lancaster and Harrisburg.
Formerly owned by the Marietta Gravity Water Company, and the Wildcat Inn a century prior, the region serves as a crossroads of hikers and archery hunters. That crossroads goes back to the Lancaster Conservancy's own roots.
The group was formed by sportsmen in 1969. Back then, the group looked to save rural game land for hunters and fishermen, according to Wenger.
Now, in perhaps some of the most rapidly-growing years under Wenger's tenure, the organization works as a bridge not only between York and Lancaster Counties, but between its people.
"What's really unique about our work is we take those conservative impulses, those hunters in our community, and we combine them with all those environmental young people," Wenger said. "It has really created a tremendous amount of energy that wasn't here even ten years ago."
Demand for that energy surged as Pennsylvanians scoured for ways to get outside and enjoy nature during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a direct result, Wenger says, the impetus to create more trails and preserve more land grew in a post-pandemic world.
For lands the Conservancy chooses to preserve, the group comes back and restores what once was. The group rebuilds wetlands, inventories plants and animals in the forest on top of developing and maintaining trails. Nature comes first.
A preserve isn't like a park with trash cans and bathrooms, which serves as a challenge after the organization's hard work.
"We really want people to end up coming onto the land and valuing this protected environment that is here," Wenger said.
So whether you're exploring the 80-foot waterfalls of Wildcat Run, walking the trails within or taking in the beautiful views on the bluff at the edge of the Susquehanna River, Wenger says to think not only about getting out and enjoying nature, but about the improvement preserving it has on your everyday life.
"All these beautiful trees are storing carbon and helping clean our paired airways," Wenger said. "Act locally and get involved in trying to save our few remaining natural areas."
For more information on the Hellam Hills Nature Preserve and how you can volunteer or learn more information about the Lancaster Conservancy, visit their website.