BLOOMINGTON, Ind. –Â Sycamore Land Trust, a Bloomington-based conservation nonprofit protecting 11,432 acres of land in southern Indiana, has expanded its Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve in Monroe County to 824 acres by establishing two new nature preserves along Beanblossom Creek, and will restore wetlands and other important habitats on the preserves.
Bill and Kathleen Oliver donated a new 61-acre nature preserve, adjacent to Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve, to Sycamore Land Trust this month. The property is south of the main portion of Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve. It is attached to a tract of the preserve, creating connectivity between protected properties that will expand habitat corridors and critical landscape linkages across a broad range of habitats.
At the southern end of the new nature preserve, Beanblossom Creek is spanned by the reconstructed Cedar Ford covered bridge, originally built by the Kennedy Brothers in 1885, which brings Old Maple Grove Road across Beanblossom Creek.
Sycamore Land Trust also recently purchased the John Allen England Nature Preserve, adding 26 more acres to Beanblossom Bottoms Nature Preserve.
The nature preserve complex is part of over 2,400 acres protected by Sycamore Land Trust in the Beanblossom Creek Conservation Area (BCCA) in Monroe and Brown Counties. The BCCA is Sycamore Land Trust’s ongoing project to protect and restore wetlands and other important natural areas in and along the floodplain of Beanblossom Creek, a major tributary of the West Fork White River.
