Skaneateles Conservation Area/History

Most of the land making up the SCA is former agricultural land with only a small fraction, mostly the parts that are too steep or too wet, that have never been farmed. When farm land is abandoned, a succession of vegetation from surrounding areas moves in to fill the void. Some of what moves back in are native plants from surrounding forests, which puts the land on track to eventually become a healthy productive forest somewhat resembling the forest that it once was before being farmed.

The problem is that much of the vegetation that returns to the old agricultural fields consists of exotic plants (including trees, shrubs and herbs) that were never part the original forest and in fact evolved on other continents where they could be kept in check by the insects and other herbivores that they evolved with. The native herbivores of our area have not developed a taste for most of these exotics and probably could not survive on them if they did.

Many of our exotic plants were brought here and planted intentionally by early settlers and continued to be planted intentionally through the twentieth century, and were even planted, sold, and given away by the government for “conservation” plantings to provide habitat and prevent erosion.

As recently as this year the New York State nursery was selling European Viburnum opulus var. opulus (Guelder rose), selling it a “high-bush cranberry,” while New York also ranks it as invasive because it outcompetes and hybridized with native high-bush cranberries. As a result of all this, much of the SCA, especially the part that was formerly the “Federal Farm” (a USDA experiment station and later a military training ground), has now been taken over by invasive trees, shrubs, and herbaceous plants, but with pockets of interesting native flora that should be saved if at all possible. This problem has become worse in recent years due to climate change and the amount of invasives present in surrounding properties.