Small Listing Spurs Protection: Indiana saves 3,950 acres; new wildlife area opens

What began as an attempt to save a 191-acre piece of land from a potential sale has grown into one of southern Indiana's significant conservation efforts. Nearly 4,000 acres in Sullivan County are now permanently protected as the Busseron Creek Fish and Wildlife Area, preserving wetlands, forests and former coal-mining land for wildlife and public recreation.

A November 2 account by the Conservation Law Center, alongside reports from Indiana Public Media and The Indianapolis Star, has shed more light on how an unexpected property listing in 2022 set the larger project in motion. The conservation effort began when the Conservation Law Center's Southern Indiana Sentinel Landscape team noticed a 191-acre parcel listed on the open market in late 2022.

The property was part of a much larger holding of nearly 4,000 acres owned by American Land Holdings of Indiana, a subsidiary of Peabody Energy.The land had a complicated history. Much of it had previously been part of the Minnehaha Fish and Wildlife Area, which closed in 2016 after the former landowner declined to renew its lease.