Part 1: Supplemental Information

Cave Conservancies in the United States: A National Overview from a
Personal Perspective

Michael Warner, Northeast Cave Conservancy

Fred Stone from Cornell University and others exploring New York State's McFails Cave in the early 1960s were faced with a challenge. There was not a solution which could be found in the pages of a book or even from the support of an existing organization. How could they protect what they discovered? There were no cave conservancies. The Nature Conservancy, only organized a decade earlier, had no interest in this sort of project. There was no easily available road map to follow for anyone wishing to privately preserve a cave. The New York cavers forged ahead, purchasing land containing an entrance and portions of the cave in 1965.

The National Speleological Society eventually accepted ownership, and management, of the property. Initially the board and many of the officers were not aware that the society was being pushed down this road. Nearly forty years after the purchase of the land, which amounted to stepping into a void, I am part of a well established community of volunteers which participate in the management of McFails Cave. The NSS owns and manages three cave properties (including McFails) within easy drive of my house. The Northeastern Cave Conservancy owns or manages another three properties and at this writing is on the verge of purchasing Clarksville Cave, perhaps the most visited wild cave in the northeast. From my perspective, a trend is evident!

The NSS, which was founded to promote exploration, science, and fellowship among cave explorers eventually became and now remains the sole national non-govermental organization with a primary (although far from exclusive) mission to hold and manage caves and karst lands in an undeveloped state. Thomas Lera's article elsewhere in this publication explores the relationship of the NSS to cave ownership. As extensive as the involvement of the NSS has become, the full story of cave conservation through direct ownership or easement comes with the proliferation of regional, local or even site specific conservancies that have organized seemingly one on the heel of another in recent years to be represented in most areas of the country where caves occur on privately owned lands.

Independent organizations with the exclusive goal of cave conservation began to appear in the 1960s and 1970s. Three of the first were all in the state of Virginia, and gave a foreshadowing of organizational efforts across the country. The Butler Cave Conservancy (1968) and the Perkins Cave Management and Conservation Society (1978) each were formed to manage single, significant cave in Virginia. Butler Cave has been managed by the conservancy for over 35 years and nearby Bobcat Cave was added to their management holdings in the late 1980s. The Butler Cave Conservancy has supported a number of studies dealing with meteorology, mineralogy, microbiology, paleontology and cartography. Perkins Cave managers have kept busy over the years "maintaining their philosophy of the primary value of preserving the unique quality of Perkins Cave in Virginia. Secondary values such as restoring a potential Gray Bat maternity colony site, using the cave as an educational tool for significant leaders and opinion molders, mapping and documenting the cave photographically, encouraging scientific study, and supporting other worthwhile uses".

The Cave Conservancies of Virginia (1978) was organized as a more broad ranging effort, being involved in fundraising, educational, research, and environmental protection projects since its founding. The CCV purchased its first property in 2003, which became Powell Mountain Karst Preserve. The preserve "opens a new chapter" for the conservancy, which now joins other land trusts in the hands on aspects of managing karst lands.

The Michigan Karst Conservancy became the first cave conservancy to fully embrace a new model of organization that had gained considerable momentum in the broader land conservation movement. The MKC was organized as a true land trust in 1983 by members of the Michigan Interlakes Grotto of the NSS, along the model promoted by the national Land Trust Alliance (founded in 1982). The additional distinction that singles out the MKC beyond the land trust model was the goal to be widely active in a broad region and seek out a series of properties to pursue with a set management system in place. The MKC's organizational pattern was followed in Indiana with the formation of the Indiana Karst Conservancy. The model has become increasingly popular and successful in many cave rich regions. One factor that restricted the MKC is the limited amount of karst and limited number of caves in their region of operation. The MKC's first and most significant project was the 480-acre Fiborn Karst Preserve, which contains Michigan’s longest cave. Very few other caves of any extent are known in the state. The MKC has pursued projects related to sinkholes in the northeastern area of the lower-peninsula. As a Michigan caver, the MKC was my first exposure to volunteer cave and karst management.

Other similar regional organizations soon found even greater success in terms of numbers of projects and caves under management. John Wilson's article in this volume details more fully with the subject of conservancies in the United States.

The Northeastern Cave Conservancy was formed in 1978 to accept the donation of Knox Cave in New York. Knox is one of the caves I now volunteer to help manage. The NCC recently reorganized in order to follow the model established by newer organizations, becoming a board-run land trust that actively sought new properties. There is no doubt in my mind that some of the organizations the NCC borrowed ideas from, were inspired by the early success of the NCC itself.

My experiences shaped the outline of this review. Each of us will have a different perspective. Once, until very recently, there were no conservancies protecting caves. Now, we not only have the different conservancies at work, we have the experiences and methods of those organizations to call upon. As Thom Engel outlines in his article, we have models for management plans in all their intricacies to use as guiding systems enroute to even better organization. We have ever evolving methods for considering and managing an ever wider range of circumstances and resources.

The National Cave Conservancies Forum provides a chance to share our collective visions for the future of cave conservation in the U.S. Let us work together and decide what the future of privately managed cave and karst areas will be and how we can best move towards that future.

As I complete this article, I am enroute to visit one other area of the United States which now has a cave conservancy to call its own: Hawaii. I look forward to the work of acquiring and managing new conservancy properties there. And I look forward to being able to employ all the methods that have come into use in the last forty years. I would like to say "Thanks, Fred" for stepping into the void. By sharing our ideas we can all be like Fred Stone; who just happens to live on the big island of Hawaii and serves as a board member of the Cave Conservancy of Hawaii. In his newest efforts, Fred Stone does not have to step into a void. Others are waiting with a light (and methods) to assist.