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Introduction to the Stewardship Handbook

Natural lands provide many environmental, ecological, and recreational benefits including protection of water resources, habitat for local and migratory wildlife, and areas for hiking and connecting to nature.

Stewardship is an active process of engagement with the land to direct it toward (or keep it at) a desired state. Because natural processes in Pennsylvania have been and continue to be significantly altered by human activity (and such problems as invasive species and climate change), natural lands left to themselves will—in most cases—become degraded and dysfunctional. It is not good enough to leave natural lands alone. They need active stewardship

The Stewardship Handbook provides a framework for decision-making by those involved with natural lands planning and stewardship. It assists land trusts, conservancies, local governments, homeowners' associations, and other owners or managers of existing or potential natural lands in developing stewardship goals and then planning and implementing stewardship practices. The Handbook provides information on options available for stewarding natural lands and the challenges and opportunities associated with each option.

A few notes regarding stewardship and use of the Stewardship Handbook:

• Today’s stewardship recommendations are based on current knowledge and technology. You should use the Stewardship Handbook knowing that plant communities will evolve, resource information and technology will change, and new impacts to natural lands are inevitable and may require new strategies to address.
• Every property has a unique combination of inherent environmental conditions (geology, soils, hydrology, climate) and management history. Every parcel of land will benefit from a stewardship plan tailored to its particular conditions and history. It is important to be patient, observant, and not afraid to modify your original stewardship plan if you are not meeting your stewardship goals. It also does not hurt to question any recommendation from this or any other source if it does not fit into the reality that you experience on a particular land parcel.
• Managing natural lands involves a relationship between land and people that benefits from mental flexibility, a light approach, and humor and humility on the part of the land steward. Like other relationships, the stewardship of natural lands requires an ongoing commitment to understand (which will take many years); respect your “partner” and it is guaranteed to provide you with unexpected surprises (good and bad) along the way.

Acknowledgments

The Stewardship Handbook's content was created by Natural Lands, Continental Conservation, and Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. It is based on two previous editions that were developed by Natural Lands with contributions from Continental Conservation.

This present edition was funded in part by a grant from the Community Conservation Partnerships Program, under the administration of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, Bureau of Recreation in support of the Schuylkill Highlands Conservation Landscape administered by Natural Lands. Funding was also provided by the William Penn Foundation, which was founded in 1945 by Otto and Pheobe Haas and is dedicated to improving the quality of life in Greater Philadelphia.

The opinions expressed in this Handbook are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funders, or the Handbook's host, WeConservePA.