Our Mission
To acquire, protect, and steward Ohio’s forest and aquatic ecosystems so that they can continue to soothe, educate, and inspire people to live in harmony with their natural world.
Acquire
Our flagship project is to acquire a 65 acre plot of forest and wetlands in Carroll county, near Lake Mohawk. This land connects to and is surrounded by many more tracts of land. Much of this land has been logged and denigrated for many years. And still, these forests survive and provide habitat for thousands of flora and fauna species that are vital to the health of this region. Moreover, these ecosystems are part of a beleaguered global system that supports all life on this planet. Please consider helping us protect that system before it is too late.
Protect
We are working closely with Western Reserve Land Conservancy, the largest land trust in Ohio. Together we will put this land under legal protection from all future development. Once under protection, the land will be used as a sanctuary for the life contained therein as well as the visiting public. We encourage you to visit the land to rest, reset, breathe, learn, explore, and become inspired once again by life. In addition to the immediate benefits of a pristine and vibrant landscape, the lands that we can protect will be saved for future generations to enjoy.
Steward
At Ohio Forest Sanctuaries we put our trust and our support in Nature. After putting this land under protection, we will steward the land so that it can reestablish it’s own natural rhythm and balance. As with all good stewards, our role is to serve. We believe that the wisdom of natural processes far outweigh our own understanding of the intricate links between all life. We believe that humans must find our role within those natural processes. The continuation of life as we know it demands that we finally abandon notions that set humans above Nature, or worse, that allows humans to dominate and destroy Nature for our own endless wants and needs.
Humans stand at a precipice. Our actions have disrupted natural processes set in motion many millennia ago. As change happens at an unprecedented rate, we have cut off and carved up escape routes for forests and the species thriving therein.
“I see designating many more protected areas as a solution [to climate disaster]. We need areas of wild forests to be like the stepping stones we use to cross water without getting our feet wet. If there were enough of them, wild species could travel freely … from one preserve to the next. And if these areas were not too far apart, then we really could see how trees react to climate change.” - Peter Wholleben, NYT bestselling author of The Hidden Life of Trees.