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Conservation Law Center to help manage new federal land program in southern Indiana

The Maurer School center will help oversee Sentinel Landscape acreage

For Immediate Release Feb 16, 2022

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The Conservation Law Center at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law will help manage a new designation of more than 3.5 million acres in southern Indiana as a Sentinel Landscape, a coalition to advance sustainable land management practices around military installations and ranges.

Vegetation growing in a wetland
Land within the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape includes wetlands.Photo by Steve Gifford

The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership has added the area and two others, in Florida and Texas, to bring the total to just 10 in the country selected for the federal program. The program is a partnership of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior.

With the Sentinel designation, federal and state entities will conserve natural resources, protect critical habitat and prepare Indiana for environmental changes while preserving areas used for military readiness. Southern Indiana is home to four critical Department of Defense installations and associated ranges: Naval Support Activity Crane, Lake Glendora Test Facility, Atterbury-Muscatatuck Training Center and the Indiana Air Range Complex. The region also contains six state parks, seven state forests, nine state fish and wildlife areas, 39 state-dedicated nature preserves, one national forest and three national wildlife refuges.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for farmers, forest owners and other private landowners to gain even greater access to existing federal land management programs,” said Christian Freitag, executive director of the Conservation Law Center and clinical associate professor of law at IU.

“We have decades of combined experience in southern Indiana land conservation,” Freitag said. “It’s no exaggeration that the Sentinel Landscape is one of the biggest conservation projects in Indiana history, and an example of how conservation can be an across-the-board win when the right partners work toward common ground. Our partnership shows our shared recognition that conservation projects help our economy and improve our quality of life.”

The center will help coordinate the partners promoting sustainable land practices in the designated areas. Partners include the U.S. military branches, The Nature Conservancy, Indiana Economic Development Corp.’s Defense Development Office, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, the Indiana Defense Task Force, the White River Military Coordination Alliance, and numerous local- and state-level conservation organizations.

Map of southern Indiana with the Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape outlined
The Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape covers more than 3.5 million acres.Photo courtesy of the Conservation Law Center

In addition to improving landscape resilience by maintaining and connecting healthy forests, the project also addresses habitat needs of various native species, including the federally endangered Indiana bat and federally threatened northern long-eared bat. Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape partners will focus on river and watershed protection by implementing regional watershed management plans along with state and federal wetland and waterway programs.

“This project is another example of how the Conservation Law Center’s expertise and ability to build coalitions is the right medicine at the right time for the most pressing environmental challenges facing our state and country,” said Austen Parrish, dean of the Maurer School. “We couldn’t be prouder to partner with CLC and the incredible Sentinel team on this important opportunity.”

The Conservation Law Center started in 2005. It provides free legal counsel to organizations working on conservation law and policy while offering Maurer School of Law students clinical experience.

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Conservation Law Center

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