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“If you meet a bear, don’t run. Just back quietly away,” Eberhard Faber said Thursday morning, matter-of-factly letting a visitor know that animals enjoy the natural habitat of his land along Ten Mile Run in Bear Creek.
Bears aren’t the only creatures that thrive in the green corridor here.
“We’ve seen bobcat prints in the snow,” Faber said, holding his hands several inches apart to indicate their width.
Snowshoe hares, coyotes and plenty of deer roam the woods past tall white pines, oaks, maples and hemlocks; trout swim in the cold waters of the stream.
And if that makes the Faber property sound so idyllic that you’d hate to see it transformed into anything else — certainly not a strip mall or parking lot or condominiums — rest assured that will never happen.
Faber has set more than 300 acres aside, to be conserved in perpetuity through the North Branch Land Trust, an organization whose core values include a commitment “to preserve the beauty and environmental health of Pennsylvania for the benefit of future generations.”
When you talk about “environmental health,” Paul Lumia and Barb Romanansky of the NBLT said, you’re really talking about people’s health, too, mentally and physically.
It’s something individuals and families need more than ever, Romanansky said, as the coronavirus restrictions have isolated many people, pushing them indoors and forcing them to work or study by staring at screens for extended periods of time.
”Our forests and natural spaces have worth beyond what we can imagine, and in times like these, their value becomes clear. We need these places to stay healthy and calm,” said Romanansky, who is director of development for the NBLT.
“You get a feeling of peace when you’re out in natural surroundings,” said Lumia, who is NBLT executive director. “Just breathing the fresh air makes you feel better, calmer.”
Among the more than 20,000 acres the NBLT has protected or helped protect since its beginnings in 1993 are several tracts that, Lumia pointed out, have trails the public is welcome to use.
He suggests area residents visit the 669-acre Howland Preserve, located north of Tunkhannock in Franklin Township, Wyoming County, where you’ll find a riparian forest and conifer plantations, or the 139-acre Bear Creek Lake View Preserve, located in Bear Creek Village in Luzerne County, where you can experience the flora and fauna of the Pocono Plateau.
The Faber Property isn’t open to the public on a regular basis, but when the coronavirus epidemic is over, Lumia anticipates the NBLT will resume leading occasional hikes there and at other locations, where naturalists explain the biology and history of the area.
Until those group hikes can be organized, Lumia and Romanansky urge people to experience nature anywhere they can.
“You don’t have to go into the woods,” Romanansky said. “You can open your window in downtown Wilkes-Barre or downtown Hazleton and listen to the birds sing.”
A strong believer in experiencing nature, Romanansky has compiled a list of health benefits it can bring about, from sunshine giving people a dose of Vitamin D, to natural light normalizing your sleep schedule, to harmless bacteria commonly found in soil acting as a natural anti-depressant.
If you’d like to help the NBLT in its efforts of preserving a variety of landscapes and habitats, Romanansky mentioned the organization will hold an adapted fund-raiser in August, involving a virtual auction and a drive-through dinner, in which people can pick up Southern fried chicken “with all the fixins” at the Westmoreland Club.
“You won’t have to get all fancy or duded up,” she said, suggesting that it would be fun to eat the dinner as a outdoors as a picnic.
If anyone is interested in donating gift cards or other items to the auction, Romanansky said, they are invited to call 570-310-1781.