The Power of our Presence

Interning with NICHES Land Trust in West-Central Indiana

What is NICHES Land Trust?

Conservation land trusts like NICHES are non-profit, non-adversarial organizations that acquire land through purchase, citizen or company donation, or easements in order to preserve natural areas. NICHES has six permanent staff members and a volunteer community of like-minded individuals that create tangible and long-term impacts on ecosystems.

NICHES administrative office at Clegg Memorial Garden.

Northern Indiana Citizens Helping Ecosystems Survive (NICHES) has protected and restored regional ecosystems in West-Central Indiana since 1995. They believe in:

Native Plants and Animals | Preserving biological diversity in forests, prairies, wetlands, and aquatic systems

Public Access and Private Landowners | Inspiring an appreciation for nature and a stewardship ethic in both volunteers and private landowners

Stewardship and Sustainability | Inspiring long-term land stewardship so future generations can enjoy natural spaces

NICHES Properties

NICHES manages almost 3,600 acres across 13 counties. Zoom in to see county boundary lines and where I worked this summer in Tippecanoe, Carroll, Jasper, Newton, and Warren county.

The NICHES website provides directions to and descriptions of their properties, including the permitted activities at each site like hiking, fishing, mushroom hunting, bird watching, and paddling.

My ten-week internship consisted of stewarding these properties, co-leading summer adventure camp, and writing a feature article for the NICHES newsletter. I worked alongside NICHES staff, volunteers, and a fellow summer intern to learn what passion, precision, and biological knowledge is needed for a sustainable conservation ethic.

Stewardship

NICHES envisions a mosaic of connected habitats in West-Central Indiana that provide the appropriate space and ecosystem services for viable populations of native species. In degraded natural areas, land management techniques such as prescribed fires, hunting, invasive species removal, and habitat restoration are essential for maintaining regional ecosystems and providing natural spaces in which the public can learn, heal, and relax. Stewardship is labor and time intensive, and NICHES relies on passionate staff and volunteers to invest in the land's longevity.

In 2020, volunteers invested more working hours by the end of the summer than they did throughout all of 2019. COVID-19 kept many people at home, but it also provided new opportunities to explore, appreciate, and work in natural areas. It was a privilege to find work with NICHES this summer and contribute to the 1,120 intern hours. Graphic created by NICHES Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator, Sam Cody.

Invasive Species Removal

Native Seed Collection

Collecting Smooth rockcress seeds

While NICHES stewards and maintains pre-established natural areas, they also recognize the need for land restorations to avoid species loss, reestablish degraded areas, and create new pockets of native habitats. NICHES purchases and collects seeds for their restoration mixes.

Individual plant species mature at different times throughout the year, but many are ready to collect starting in mid June. I helped collect seeds from a variety of sedges, grasses, and flowering plants like this Smooth rockcress.


    Summer Camp

    Hiking at Turkey Run State Park in Parke County, IN

    NICHES offers three one-week sessions of summer adventure camp for youth ages 11-14. Campers immerse themselves in native ecosystems by hiking, swimming, cooking, identifying plants and animals, and exploring in any form. I co-led camp with NICHES Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator Sam Cody and my fellow summer intern. Camp runs on the motto, "Kids need nature, nature needs kids."

    What might a day at camp look like?

    9:30-11:00- Meet at Clegg, play giant Jenga, explore the outdoor playground, and hydrodip animal skulls. 12:00-2:30- Visit NICHES Crow’s Grove property to play in the creeks. Take a prairie walk and pick blackberries. 2:30-3:30- Visit the property of a nearby NICHES supporter to hand make pizza in their wood-fired brick oven. 4:30- End of camp! Throughout the week, campers will have also tie-dyed camp shirts, tubed down Big Pine Creek, eaten ice cream in West Lafayette, and visited many properties to hike, identify plants, and swim in creeks.

    More Camp Highlights

    Check out the camp feature in the NICHES quarterly newsletter


    Writing for the Newsletter

    NICHES Executive Director Gus Nyberg gave me the opportunity to write an article about local Lafayette landowners and their stewardship work on private property. I scheduled interviews with four landowners, visited their land, and learned about their individual stewardship philosophies. The resulting article honors how these landowners contribute to the health of larger surrounding ecosystems, and it also inspires readers to make a difference in their own land, whether that may be fourteen acres, a small urban backyard, or even the property of a nearby land trust. This project, a beautiful combination of my passions for writing and the environment, showed me the power of the written word in connecting people with both their human and natural communities.

    Below are pages from the NICHES quarterly newsletter, The Sprout, featuring both me and my fellow intern and my article "The Power of our Presence."

    A NICHES membership, which comes with a $25 annual donation, includes a subscription to The Sprout and invitations to member only events.


    Learning Outcomes

    Plant Identification: Throughout the summer, I learned to identify over seventy native plants—including sedges, grasses, trees, wildflowers, and shrubs—from NICHES staff and personal research. It was rewarding to see individual species materialize out of a green landscape, and this knowledge strengthened my appreciation for the beauty and diversity of Indiana's nature. Learning new plants every day also taught me how much I don't know about the natural world. It sparked a new curiosity to walk into the woods and ask, "What plants are unfamiliar, and what can I learn today," instead of "what few species do I already know?"

    While working one day with NICHES Stewardship Director Bob Easter at the Whistler Hare Woods property, he spotted and pulled out a small burning bush growing in a forest. Burning bush are invasive, and Bob commented that someone unfamiliar with plant species would have walked by the sprout and left it to spread throughout the ecosystem. This lesson taught me the importance of plant identification for conservationists, biologists, or any person interacting with the land. If we cannot identify and notice an inconspicuous native flower, for example, we will not notice if it begins disappearing from an ecosystem disruption.

    These are some of the native plants that I photographed and identified in West-Central Indiana. Slide the arrow to see their habitats.

    Ecosystem functions: With prairies as my classroom and NICHES staff as teachers and experts in their field, I learned fundamentals about how the size, location, and quality of ecosystems affect their long-term viability. For example, large patches of connected or almost connected land create biological corridors necessary for an animal's movement and access to resources. NICHES's prescribed fire program is critical for regenerating seeds, promoting native species, managing invasives, and maintaining the overall long-term health of fire-dependent ecosystems like prairies, savannas, and oak woodlands. Hand pollinating and transplanting natives and maintaining both invasive and over-abundant native species promotes biodiversity. Throughout each lesson, I better understood biotic interactions at both an individual and landscape level.

    Guiding youth in nature: Co-leading summer camp taught me the value of providing public access to nature and opportunities for young people to spend time in nature. During camp, we drove to a NICHES property and let the campers play as they wished instead of following a strict hour-by-hour schedule. We gave them the independence for self-guided exploration, and I was amazed at their individualized and innate curiosity. Some days we walked the creeks and caught crawdads, and other days we dove right into the water to swim and throw mud. Some campers chose to not get dirty at all and instead sketched in their nature journals. They asked the names of plants and animals then remembered them the next day. During make-your-own pizza Fridays, they tried the chanterelle mushrooms that we foraged earlier in the week. Campers grew a stronger appreciation for the natural communities with which they share their space and could begin to equate beautiful nature with their Indiana hometowns and not just places like national parks. These simple, educational moments create the foundation for environmental-awareness as adults, and they don't require major expenses, environmental expertise, or elaborate plans.

    Genre writing: During the past four years as an English writing major, I have written a wide variety of genres including creative nonfiction, fiction, profiles, dramatic writing, academic essays, scientific research papers, and now journalistic feature pieces. Each genre has different audiences and rules, and the NICHES article also required interpersonal skills to set schedules with the landowners, ask questions, and listen. It also emphasized the power of the moment—of stumbling on a trillium bloom or spotting a fox with her kit in the ecosystem you helped maintain—and also the power of sharing that moment with people on and off of the page. Writing this journalistic piece taught me how to strike a balance between fact and philosophy, science and inspiration to connect people with the natural world and their role within it.

    NICHES Executive Director Gus Nyberg speaking to a group of conservation-minded individuals gathered around two Lesser purple fringed orchids. Photo by Chad Phelps.

    Learn more about NICHES

    https://www.nicheslandtrust.org

    https://www.facebook.com/NICHEShelpingecosystemssurvive/

    Contact Catherine

    catherinefisher_2021@depauw.edu

    NICHES administrative office at Clegg Memorial Garden.

    In 2020, volunteers invested more working hours by the end of the summer than they did throughout all of 2019. COVID-19 kept many people at home, but it also provided new opportunities to explore, appreciate, and work in natural areas. It was a privilege to find work with NICHES this summer and contribute to the 1,120 intern hours. Graphic created by NICHES Volunteer and Outreach Coordinator, Sam Cody.

    Collecting Smooth rockcress seeds

    Hiking at Turkey Run State Park in Parke County, IN

    A NICHES membership, which comes with a $25 annual donation, includes a subscription to The Sprout and invitations to member only events.

    These are some of the native plants that I photographed and identified in West-Central Indiana. Slide the arrow to see their habitats.

    NICHES Executive Director Gus Nyberg speaking to a group of conservation-minded individuals gathered around two Lesser purple fringed orchids. Photo by Chad Phelps.