The Western New York Land Conservancy has announced its next big effort to preserve WNY’s forested lands. Now, it has set its sights on a 223-acre property Chautauqua County Forest, adjacent to the College Lodge Forest near Fredonia.
To that end, the organization is currently assembling the Friends of the Floating Fen committee, which will orchestrate funding efforts. The group is named after a bog-like area within the unique wetland, which is home to seas of blue flag iris, carnivorous sundews, and a trove of rare plants. Anyone interested in joining the committee is encouraged to reach out to the Land Conservancy.
The goal is to raise $925,000 by December 31, 2023.
Once the land is protected, the Floating Fen will join the College Lodge Forest as a nature preserve, combining to form nearly 400-acres of protected land.
Along with the critical bog-like area, the Chautauqua County Forest is home to porcupines, beavers, fishers, great flocks of migratory songbirds, and other spectacular wildlife.
Ultimately, once the funding effort is successful, Chautauqua County Forest will join the College Lodge Forest as a nature preserve, to form nearly 400-acres of protected land. It was back in May of 2022 that College Lodge Forest was inducted into Old-Growth Forest Network – a national network spanning the United States that helps to protect mature, publicly accessible, and native forests.
The Land Conservancy will then maintain the forest and wetland, and it will open a walking trail so visitors can enjoy the site’s nature.
The significant span of forested land will one day become part of the Land Conservancy’s Western New York Wildway – an ambitious plan to protect, connect, and restore our region’s largest forests—from Northern Pennsylvania to the Adirondack Mountains and beyond.
If you would like to donate to save the Floating Fen, you can donate online at wnylc.org/donate (select “Floating Fen” in the dropdown menu) or send a check made payable to “Western New York Land Conservancy” to P.O. Box 471, East Aurora, NY 14052. Please call or email if you have questions: (716) 687-1225 or info@wnylc.org. Learn more at wnylc.org.
In other conservation news, earlier this month the Land Conservancy announced that it has officially purchased Cattaraugus County Forest (named the Janet Gallogly Allegany Wildlands. The land is a spectacular 185-acre forest in Cattaraugus County.
Thanks to stalwart efforts by the Land Conservancy and the Friends of the Allegany Wildlands, the forested land was purchased from descendants of the Hotchkiss family, which had purchased the land from the Holland Land Company in the early 1800s. Their descendants married into the Moore family and, later, the Sluga family. Thanks to the Sluga family’s desire to see the property safeguarded, the Land Conservancy was able to secure the purchase.
“By selling to the Land Conservancy we knew we’d get to share this special place with others,” Steve Sluga said, “But also that we’d have some control over what happened to it. That was important to us. We didn’t want to see the forest exploited. This public nature preserve is the best-case scenario for us, and we couldn’t be happier.”
Nancy Smith, the Executive Director of the Land Conservancy, added, “The Janet Gallogly Allegany Wildlands is an astonishing forest that’s already connected to thousands of acres of protected state land, making it a huge step toward the long-term goal of establishing the Western New York Wildway, our ambitious proposal to protect, connect, and restore our region’s largest forests.”
The connectivity of The Janet Gallogly Allegany Wildlands to the WNY Wildway spurred the Gallogly Family Foundation to donate to the campaign.
“We believe the Wildway is a gamechanger for our region.”
Kasey DeLuke
“We are extraordinarily pleased to assist the Land Conservancy in their efforts to save the Allegany Wildlands,” said Kasey DeLuke, Gallogly Family Foundation’s Executive Director and Land Conservancy board member. “Our goal, like theirs, is to keep the momentum for landscape-scale conservation of the type envisioned by the Western New York Wildway going strong for years to come. We believe the Wildway is a gamechanger for our region.”