BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- The Conservation Law Center at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law will help manage a new designation of more than 3.5 million acres in southern Indiana as a Sentinel Landscape, a coalition to advance sustainable land management practices around military installations and ranges.
The Sentinel Landscapes Partnership has added the area and two others, in Florida and Texas, to bring the total to just 10 in the country selected for the federal program. The program is a partnership of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior.
With the Sentinel designation, federal and state entities will conserve natural resources, protect critical habitat and prepare Indiana for environmental changes while preserving areas used for military readiness. Southern Indiana is home to four critical Department of Defense installations and associated ranges: Naval Support Activity Crane, Lake Glendora Test Facility, Atterbury-Muscatatuck Training Center and the Indiana Air Range Complex. The region also contains six state parks, seven state forests, nine state fish and wildlife areas, 39 state-dedicated nature preserves, one national forest and three national wildlife refuges.
