• Home
  • How We Work
  • Where We Work
  • News Room
  • About Us
  • My Nature Page

The Nature Conservancy in Africa - Conservation in Africa

The Nature Conservancy in Asia Pacific - Conservation in Asia-Pacific

The Nature Conservancy in the Caribbean - Conservation in the Caribbean

The Nature Conservancy in Central America - Conservation in Central America

The Nature Conservancy in North America - Conservation in North America

The Nature Conservancy in the United States - Conservation in the United States

The Nature Conservancy in South America - Conservation in South America
 Pocono Plateau Landscape
 

Pocono Plateau Landscape

Pine swamp 

Pine swamp
© Harold E. Malde

Places to Visit

Go Deeper 

Stretching across six counties in Pennsylvania’s northeastern corner, the Pocono Mountains are celebrated for their forested peaks and valleys, sparkling lakes, clear streams and some of the most spectacular waterfalls in the region. Glaciated at least three times within the past million years, the landscape continues to be sculpted by ice and water. When the glaciers receded, they left behind a mosaic of hardwood forest, heath lands, oak barrens, boulder fields, and unique boreal wetlands that serve as home to black bears, native river otters, dozens of rare moths and butterflies, and the region’s highest concentration of globally endangered terrestrial species.

Today, the Pocono Mountains provide visitors with a glimpse of the region’s primeval past – regardless of the season. During autumn, fall foliage spanning the ridges of Moosic Mountain and overlooking Cherry Valley provides a breathtaking backdrop for the annual migration of raptors and many neo-tropical migratory birds. In springtime, Long Pond summons photographers from around the world to witness Rhodora, a wild azalea that received a poetic tribute from Ralph Waldo Emerson. Spring also brings anglers from around the state to fish for brook and brown trout in the cold, clean waters of the Upper Lehigh River. Year-round, scientists, students and local residents escape to another time among the native forest and peat-filled swamps, fens and bogs comprising the Tannersville Cranberry Bog and Thomas Darling Preserve at Two-Mile Run.

In recent years, many of these remnants of the Pocono Mountains’ natural history have become jeopardized by encroachments of a non-glaciated kind: the expansion of nearby metropolitan areas. In fact, close proximity to cities such as Philadelphia and New York City have led this region to grow faster than any place in Pennsylvania.
 
In response, The Nature Conservancy has been working for more than a decade to unite community members, government agencies and other partners to conserve the Pocono Mountains’ ecological resources in ways that benefit its nature-based economy. To date, this has been achieved through participation in numerous land planning advisory committees, scientific research, public education, nature tourism, fire management, non-native vegetation removal, and the passage of $110 million in municipal and county referendums supporting land conservation. The Conservancy also continues to acquire land and conservation easements that build on the 14,000 acres already protected by the Conservancy in one of the world’s “Last Great Places.”