Photo Essay: Protecting Land in Otsego County - Ouleout Creek

As the planet continues its steady climb toward an estimated 9.7 billion people by 2050, population centers are trending toward sprawling urban areas. Despite the convenience of metropolitan areas, the hustle and bustle of it all has many like Cat Gareth—owner of 14 acres of land along Ouleout Creek in Delaware County, New York—seeking solace in natural areas. She recalls the winter of 1988, when, as a resident of Brooklyn, she set out to find her own place of solitude. “I was looking at places by myself and pulled onto that piece of property and said, ‘This is it. This is the place.’”

The steeply wooded hillside and cobble-bottomed creeks of the property presented an opportunity for Gareth to examine and cherish often overlooked aspects of the local environment. “You could say that it was the architect of its own conservation because, by learning what it taught me, I came to value it enough to preserve it and allow it to evolve undisturbed and educate others,” Gareth said.

Gareth placed the property under conservation easement through the Otsego Land Trust in 2014 to ensure its protection for generations to come. “I am too close to the land to speak more formally about what this conservation easement will mean to this land's ecology, its water, its wildlife, the sustainability of this fragment of the natural world, but I do hope that it survives as what I have known it to be—a habitat for the human spirit.”

This is the first of a series of three profiles of property owners that are protecting their land through the Otsego Land Trust, a nonprofit organization dedicated to conserving the natural heritage of woodlands, farmlands and waters that sustain rural communities, promote public health, support wildlife diversity and inspire the human spirit.

To view more photos, visit the Chesapeake Bay Program’s Flickr page.

Photos by Will Parson
Text by Jenna Valente