Berks Nature has evolved over its 50-year history

Apr. 22—The early 1970s were heady times nationwide for the fledgling environmental movement:

The first Earth Day was celebrated; the first issue of the Mother Earth News went to press; the Environmental Protection Agency, the Endangered Species Act, and the Clean Air and Clean Water acts were authorized; the dangerous pesticide DDT was banned.

This environmental awareness wasn't lost on the twin sons of Wyomissing industrialist Ferdinand Thun.

The Wyomissing Foundation's Louis and Ferdinand K. Thun Jr. were concerned about the growing pressures on open space in Berks County and directed attorney Paul H. Edelman to research the possibility of creating an organization to help with the preservation of historical and green places.

The result was the Berks County Conservancy, renamed Berks Nature in 2015, which was incorporated as a nonprofit on April 26, 1974, 50 years ago this Friday.

"There was a whole Earth Day movement that happened in the early '70s," Kimberly J. Murphy, Berks Nature president for the past 20 years, said in her office in the Nature Place overlooking Angelica Creek Park. "Our community wanted to make sure that the special places we have here are protected."

In the beginning, Berks Nature took small steps in that direction by necessity as the idea of an organization dedicated to environmental preservation took hold in the imaginations of county residents.

Among the first land acquisitions were properties donated by the Bortz family in Alsace Township that became the Earl Poole Sanctuary, now Bob's Woods. Land owned by the Wyomissing Foundation was soon added. The first conservation easement on 84 acres of scenic and historically significant farmland owned by the Thun family in Lower Heidelberg Township in 1979 established farmland preservation as a Berks Nature organizational priority.

"Berks Nature spent some time in historic preservation, cataloging all the county historic properties," Murphy said.

Education has also been a part of the mission, Murphy said, so there was a concerted effort in creating environmental advisory councils working closely with municipalities.

"That's who makes the zoning decisions and makes the decisions about what can be done on the land, so helping work with those decision makers has been something that we amplified," she said.

Murphy emphasized that Berks Nature is not anti-development.

"We encourage development where infrastructure already resides, in the urban cores and the developed boroughs and municipalities; that has been part of who Berks Nature has been for a long time," she said.

That principle has guided Berks Nature, which made a commitment to Reading by moving its headquarters from Wyomissing to the old waterworks building in City Park in 2001.

"Our location in the city was great in the beautiful waterworks building," Murphy said, "but we didn't have a room big enough to do any programming."

In that same year, Tropical Storm Alison poured 8 inches of rain into Angelica Lake, breaching the dam and washing out the Route 10 bridge on the southern edge of the city.

What at first was a disaster became an opportunity, as the city instead of a cost-prohibitive dam replacement created a wetland park from the drained lake bed.

Berks Nature seized that opportunity.

"The city was looking at what to do with Angelica Park, and it really made sense to get together," Murphy said. "We did a lot of programming out of what had been the boathouse for a number of years and then decided to build at this location."

The Nature Place was completed in 2017, earning LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Gold Certification for its sustainable building features prioritizing resource and energy efficiency and climate change mitigation.

"Nobody understood who we were and what we did," Murphy continued, "until we built the Nature Place. Now folks have something to associate us with."

Berks Nature's educational mission blossomed with the establishment of the Nature Preschool in 2018.

The organization also hosts programs on-site and in the classrooms for city schoolchildren and has established a partnership with nearby Alvernia University.

Nearly 14,000 visitors besides schoolchildren went to the Nature Place in 2023 for programs, exhibits or events.

Berks Nature over the last 50 years has permanently protected under easement 10,014 acres of land; acquired 616 acres of natural open space to steward; managed 27 miles of trails for public use; owned or managed 825 acres of green space for wildlife habitat and public recreation; and partnered with the Reading Housing Authority and Opportunity House to manage and tend nine community gardens in Reading.

For the past 15 years, Berks Nature has produced a State of the Environment report for Berks County, cataloging the successes and the areas that need improvement. Each of these reports is available on the Berks Nature website berksnature.org.

From the perspective of that first year in 1974, the Thuns and Edelman would certainly look at what Berks Nature has accomplished with a sense of satisfaction that the firm foundation they laid has resulted in such a successful organization.

In a Reading Eagle story published on July 11, 1974, announcing the formation of the Berks County Conservancy, Edelman sounded notes of caution and of optimism.

"If the concept is sound; if the founders are resolute and prepared to work at making the concept a reality; if there are funds thought to be adequate to in effect take the gamble; and, with a reasonable amount of good fortune, the conservancy will in fact one day become a permanent part of the community," Edelman said. "I must conclude that I believe that the operation of a successful conservancy is extremely possible in Berks County."

Berks Nature has certainly fulfilled this vision.

To help chart its future course, though, Berks Nature will be holding 50 conversations with the public to commemorate this anniversary year.

"We're doing that to listen to folks in the community to find out what's important to them," Murphy said, "and if we're doing what people think we should be doing. We'll learn from that and may slightly adjust the sails in a direction where people think that there may or may not be more need."

The Berks Nature website has more information on these conversations.

But will there be a golden anniversary celebration on April 26?

"No," Murphy said with a smile.

"Just as we like to say every day is Earth Day, this year every day is the 50th anniversary."