You’re Invited to the Sugar Creek Community Forest Townhall Meeting. Childcare and snacks provided! Please attend if you can. Your opinions matter!
A group of local stakeholders has been in negotiations with the Sugar Creek Coal and Mining Company to purchase approximately 850 acres in Dover Township. Our hope and intention is for the Land to become a Community Commons (Sugar Creek Community Forest) for the benefit of local residents in perpetuity.
This land is perfectly situated that it could create a community-tended, publicly accessible biodiversity, recreation, and wildlife corridor that connects the Bailey’s portion of the Wayne National Forest to Strouds Run State Park (ultimately connecting about 74,000 acres in Athens County).
A Community Forest could provide many benefits, including workforce development and other economic opportunities for local entrepreneurs who wish to create and be involved in Land-based food, construction, and recreation businesses, as well as the continued ecological restoration of the imperiled Sunday Creek Watershed, and the preservation of rural lifeways (hunting, foraging, firewood gathering, etc.) for our community.
We want to ensure that our neighbors are involved in this process and hope you will join us for a Community Townhall Meeting on Monday, September 28th at 6:00 pm at the Friends Meeting House in Chauncey.
We believe Dover Township deserves a Community Forest. We hope you will be a part of creating something beneficial and lasting.
