Environmental Benefits

Environmental:
  1. Preservation of an Oak Savanna -- which is one of our state's rarest ecosystems (with 99.9% of it being eliminated in MN) and one of the most endangered habitats in the world. (Although ours is degraded and would need some restoration).  Restoration is possible and desired. 
  2. Preservation of habitat for the Endangered Rusty Patched Bumble Bee.
  3. Hope for a vanishing bird.  Oak savannas may hold clues to saving the redheaded woodpecker. 
  4. Preservation for the wildlife that lives there and uses it for migration, pollination, breeding, etc (mammals, birds, amphibians, insects, etc) - including dead and/or dying trees which can exist in a parcel like this. "Nearly a third of all forest creatures depend on standing dead or fallen trees for their survival."    Document.
  5. Moderation of stormwater runoff
  6. Erosion control
  7. Air quality enhancement
  8. Help control climate change (by increasing our tree coverage -- we could lower CO2 levels by as much as 25%!)  And by preserving these older trees more carbon is collected.  70% of a trees collected carbon happens in the second half of it's life. (As trees age, their climate benefit grows, CBC News and Curb Climate Change the Easy Way: Don’t Cut Down Big Trees, TuftsNow)
  9. Provide low-impact recreation
If the goal is to minimize global warming, climate scientists often stress the importance of afforestation, or planting new forests, and reforestation, or regrowing forests. But there is a third approach to managing existing forests: proforestation, a term coined by climate scientist William Moomaw to describe the preservation of older existing forests. (Moomaw was a lead author of five major reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007.) All of these strategies have a role to play. But what Leverett has helped show in the last few years is how much more valuable proforestation is than we first thought. He has provided hard data that older trees accumulate far more carbon later in their life cycles than many had realized: In studying individual Eastern white pines over the age of 150, Bob was able to determine that they accumulate 75 percent of their total carbon after 50 years of age—a pretty important finding when every year counts in our struggle to mitigate the effects of climate change. Simply planting new forests won’t do it.       ~The Old Man and the Tree by Jonny Diamond, Smithsonian Magazine, pg 37-38

Saving Untouched/Undeveloped land:

"This Totem Town story is going on all over the country as people try to save what's left of untouched land."   Paul Wulterkens