When life doesn't give you time to breathe, you tend to look out for space to do the same yourself, deliberately. For Jeanne Paisley, a schoolteacher with three kids and a half-hour daily commute, there was a consistent wish for some room to breathe. According to The Land Steward, the Spring 2013 newsletter of the Finger Lakes Land Trust, Paisley had bought 128 acres of forests, fields and wetlands in the town of Richford in Tioga County, New York.
A campsite she couldn't forget
It all began with a family road trip. Paisley and her husband lived on Long Island and had no summer work. Thus, the couple decided to buy a tent and took their three children on a trip all over the United States and Canada. When they returned to New York, they chanced upon this land and the family agreed it was the best campsite they had ever seen. The land suited her job as well. The drive to Paisley's school was just half an hour and she liked the setting. She recalled seeing red salamanders in the driveway when they first arrived at the site. And what made her especially glad was that there, no neighbour would ask her to mow her lawn. For her, the appeal was natural beauty and the freedom to leave nature alone. Paisley traced her love for the outdoors to her childhood during the Great Depression. When her father was unemployed, the family moved to the country. They built a small house and carried spring water up the hill. That early life stayed with her. In her words, "Caring about nature is just part of how I think." She added that she always knew she wanted to protect the land at some point. Decades later, she did just that.
A protected forest
About 40 years later, at the age of 86, Paisley still continued to reside on the land. She had placed a conservation easement on her property with the Finger Lakes Land Trust. A conservation easement is an agreement that restricts the manner in which the land will be developed in the future. In this case, it was aimed at protecting the mature forests and prime farmland in the area of the east branch of Owego Creek. The Land Trust noted that two attorneys, John Alexander and Eric Haselbauer, provided pro bono legal help. This protection mattered because it helps safeguard the watershed. As reported in The Land Steward, David Diaz, the Land Trust's director of land protection, said the property helps maintain local watershed quality and supports fish such as eastern brook trout. He explains that because of its steep slopes and presence of a seasonal stream, the land is particularly susceptible to erosion due to stormwater runoff if disturbed by future development. Such damage can affect the water quality not only of the Owego Creek but also of waters many miles downstream. The property lies in a focus area for the Land Trust, where tributaries flow into the Upper Susquehanna River. That river's watershed drains into the Chesapeake Bay, the country's largest estuary. Andy Zepp, executive director of the Land Trust, said she and her family helped expand a network of protected lands in her Southern Tier neighbourhood. Her property joins several nearby protected areas, including multiple state forests, the Land Trust's King Nature Preserve, and another conservation easement. In a 2019 review published in Science Advances, Gregory Bratman and his co-authors summarise research related to nature and its impacts on mental health. Time spent in nature, the researchers argue, is linked with better well-being, better sleep, and lower stress. Many of the findings show links, not proof. Experiments suggest a short time in nature can brighten mood, but it is less clear whether that builds long-term mental health. The paper also lists water purification as one example of the benefits ecosystems provide, echoing Diaz's point about water quality at Owego Creek.
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