List of unique areas includes Lansing’s natural gems

Environmental advocates are aiming to ensure that the town of Lansing’s natural beauty is properly preserved and accurately captured in New York state’s only inventory of unique natural areas (UNAs).

That inventory, which has categorized unique natural areas in Tompkins County since 1973, has been updated and includes areas in Lansing. A UNA is defined by the state as a part of a landscape that has outstanding geological and environmental qualities, such as special natural communities, or plants and animals that are rare or scarce elsewhere in the county and region.

Karen Edelstein, a member of the Tompkins County Unique Natural Areas Committee, gave a presentation to the Lansing Town Board at its July 16 meeting about a new update to the UNA inventory.

“We just completed a very thorough revision of the inventory, and because of that, we are making sure that property owners that are in these different unique natural areas are informed about [the update],” said Edelstein. “We are also doing a tour around all of the towns in the county to make sure that the town boards and invited planning board members who come are able to get updated and also ask questions.”

The inventory was greatly expanded and updated in 1990 and later in 2000, and then it was revised again in the periods between 2010-2016 and 2019-2023, according to the Tompkins County website. 

There are 195 UNAs in the county. These sites were included in the inventory based on the work of ecologists, botanists, animal scientists, geologists and wetland specialists. Thirty-one of the sites are in the town of Lansing.

Sites with public access were surveyed on foot, as were private sites when access was granted by the owner. Other parcels were evaluated from the road, from adjacent parcels or by using topographic maps and aerial photography.

The county website states that a UNA typically fulfills the following criteria:

• It supports important natural communities; state-designated wetlands, old forests, diverse plant and animal populations.
• It embodies the best examples of natural communities and resources in the county.
• It includes plants and/or animal species that are rare or scarce in the world, New York and in the county.
• It has geological importance, showing a unique formation or paleontological site.
• It offers cultural significance, exhibiting outstanding scenic beauty, recreational values, historic or archeological significance.
  

Edelstein said that one of the goals of updating the inventory is to consolidate historically significant information about UNAs.

“We want to provide information in an easily accessible place for the benefit of future generations, and also assist the different boards across the county to make informed decisions,” Edelstein said. 

The inventory could help municipalities promptly access background information for parcels, which could help municipalities deliberate on processes such as environmental reviews. 

“It’s also been a really handy document for property owners to learn more about the natural environment around where they live, and we’re very committed to having landowner access to that information,” Edelstein said. “It’s a great educational tool. It’s an advisory document.”

The UNA has been updated to establish boundaries among parcels with digital geographic information systems, which Edelstein said is the gold standard for mapping.

“We’ve got these really high-resolution aerial photography images, and we can, with quite fine detail, delineate where, say, a forest changes to a field and so forth,” Edelstein said. “So, that’s helped us a lot.”

Regarding the town’s UNAs, Edelstein said that the updates came in the way of clarifying boundaries among parcels. 

“It just makes for a much more accurate inventory, now that we’ve gotten out in the field,” Edelstein said.