The Kittatinny Ridge

The Kittatinny Ridge cuts a 185-mile path from Pennsylvania’s southern border west of Chambersburg, up through the Poconos and to the Delaware Water Gap. This ridge is Pennsylvania’s portion of a 1,500-mile-long chain of forested mountains within the Appalachian Mountains. The Kittatinny Ridge is home to Pennsylvania’s segment of the famous Appalachian Trail that runs from Georgia to Maine, and consists of 2.1 million acres across 12 counties. The varied topography creates a wide variety of niche habitats: from rocky outcrops to seasonal wetlands to cool mountain valleys. That makes it one of the most diverse habitats in North America. And as our climate warms, likely one of our most resilient[1].

The ridge is important not only to Pennsylvania’s year-round resident species but also serves a critical role as a part of the Atlantic Flyway, the path along which billions of birds from Canada and the northern United States migrate south to the Gulf of Mexico and beyond[2]. The ridge has been identified as a migration superhighway within the flyway, offering migration and stopover habitat for millions of birds, from hawks to songbirds, as they fly north each spring and south each fall[3].

As hotter temperatures, worsening droughts, and increased flooding alter the character of existing habitats, diverse landscapes like the Kittatinny Ridge are the best candidates to serve as climate refugia – cool, temperate habitats for species that are losing habitat elsewhere. But species displaced by a changing climate can only take refuge in habitat they can access – and as long as the Kittatinny Ridge contains unconnected patchworks of conserved lands, that potential as a climate refuge will be only partially fulfilled.

Complicating this vision of the Kittatinny Ridge as a migration superhighway and climate refuge is that it contains a number of the most rapidly developing counties in Pennsylvania. Cumberland County, in the Harrisburg area, is the most rapidly growing in the state, with a population growth of 10% from 2010 to 2020[4] – Lehigh (7.5% growth) and Northampton (5% growth) counties in the Lehigh Valley are close behind[5]. The growing population increases the
pressure to convert habitat to developments, further
fragmenting the region’s remaining natural areas.

Landscape-level conservation through critical partnership

To come up with a regional strategy to reconnect and protect this critical landscape, many conservation stakeholders in the region came together to develop with a conservation plan. The Kittatinny Ridge Coalition formed in 2002 as a partnership alliance between organizations, agencies, and academic institutions working across the region to preserve land across this critical landscape. The coalition would focus on 1) habitat for vulnerable species and 2) expanding and connecting small islands of habitat into larger contiguous areas.

This collaborative effort quickly showed its efficacy in preserving local lands. In the initial 16 years of the coalition’s existence, 20,000 acres of private forest land were conserved. In addition to Pennsylvania agencies and private conservancies acquiring additional land, a key tool in reconnecting the Kittatinny Ridge are conservation easements. Conservation easements arevoluntary agreements between a landowner and a land trust or government agency that permanently limits the use of the land in a way that protects its ecological value. This could include preventing deforestation, prohibiting new structures, or requiring plantings and land management practices that create habitat for specific species. Since the majority of land in Pennsylvania is privately owned, having effective tools like conservation easements for protecting habitats on these properties is critical[6].

Tuscarora State Forest in Perry County, towards the southeastern end  of Pennsylvania’s Kittatinny Ridge.Photo by PA DCNR | Public Domain

Pennsylvania officially designated the region as the Kittatinny Ridge Conservation Landscape (KRCL) in 2018, led by a partnership of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), Audubon Mid-Atlantic, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and The Nature Conservancy. At the time of designation in 2018, 20% of the over 2 million acres were conserved as either state land, federal lands, private land trusts, or through conservation easements. By 2023, 34% of the land had been conserved[7].

References

1. PA DCNR, Kittatinny Ridge Conservation Landscape, accessed at: https://www.pa.gov/agencies/dcnr/programs and-services/community-outreach-and development/conservation-landscapes/kittatinny-ridge.html, 19 February 2025.

2. National Audubon Society, Vulnerable Birds in Atlantic
Flyway, accessed at: https://www.audubon.org/climate/survivalbydegrees/flyway/atlantic, 18 November 2024.

3. Jeanne Ortiz, Audubon Mid-Atlantic, A Bird Migration
Corridor like No Other, the Kittatinny Ridge Depends on a Healthy Forest (blog post), https://pa.audubon.org/news/bird-migration-corridor-no-other-kittatinny-ridge-depends-healthy-forest, 24 September 2021.

4. Cumberland Area Economic Development Corporation, Census Data, https://cumberlandbusiness.com/living-here/census-data/, accessed on: 19 February 2025.

5. USAFacts, Our Changing Population: Cumberland County, Pennsylvania, July 2022, accessed: 19 February 2025.

6. Kittatinny Ridge Conservation Landscape, PA DCNR,
Kittatinny Ridge Conservation Landscape: A Five Year Conservation Plan, August 2023, accessed at: https://kittatinnyridge.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/8.30.23-small_KRCL-Conservation-Plan.pdf, 19 February 2025.

7. Ibid.