Earlham College
OP-10: Biodiversity

The college owns property approx. 700 acres that are designated as Classified Forests through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. From https://www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/4801.htm: "The Classified Forest and Wildlands Program encourages timber production, watershed protection, and wildlife habitat management on private lands in Indiana. Program landowners receive a property tax reduction in return for following a professionally written management plan. In addition to the tax incentive, landowners receive free technical assistance from DNR foresters and wildlife biologists, priority for cost share to offset the cost of doing management, and the ability to "green" certify their forests. The minimum requirement for program enrollment is 10 acres of forest, wetland, shrubland, and/or grassland."

Continual inventory, assessment and monitoring of property by both faculty and students, who use the property for long-term research projects. Assessed in 2018.

Identified habitats: Fens and swampy areas that are a part of campus property are managed by Earlham. Additionally, a significant portion of Earlham forest property are preserved and maintained as old forests, which have higher conservation importance than new forests. Identified endangered species: Indiana bat- state and federally designated as endangered, populations of ginseng

Our biology endowed fund is used to hire every year a property manager (which is a graduate student from Earlham) during the summer and fall who works planning, coordinating and performing field work to manage the College owned woods. In addition to that, we also use two AWPE courses, trail maintenance and invasive species removal, to support the local fauna and flora and engage students in this process. Our practices impact the following areas: BACK CAMPUS WOODS (approx. 600 acres) -Back Campus Ponds- We have also created some ponds in our back campus area. In the mid 80's we created the Teale pond and Garner Pond, which nourishes several migrating bird species (such as Geese and ducks), various local amphibians, turtles and other local wildlife. In 2007 we created 3 new ponds, which give further support to the local fauna and retain the runoff from the playing fields and the horse barn from affecting the back campus woods. -Back Campus Woods- We are removing invasive species and maintaining the trails. In addition to that, we have built several bird houses and wood duck nest boxes WOODS in OTHER COLLEGE OWNED LANDS -Wildman Woods (40 acres) We work removing invasive species, digging ponds (two so far), and building bird houses and duck nest boxes. -Cring Woods (by Portland Indiana, 40 acres) + Sedgwick's Rock Preserve (17 acres) + Reller Woods We work removing invasive species and we are planning to build ponds, trails, bird houses and duck nest boxes in all of them.