The importance of the natural resources of Chapman Forest

Large forests inspire people

The single greatest feature of Chapman Forest is the large expanses of unbroken forest – extremely unusual for anywhere in the Baltimore-Washington region. Conservation biologists talk of the importance of large blocks of unbroken forest because of the habitat that it provides for a great variety of species of plants and animals that cannot grow strong communities in small patches of woods. Every intrusion made in such a block of contiguous forest creates more forest edge, and reduces the security of the species that need forest interior.

But it is not only animals. People, too, have a great need for nature. The experience of being deep in the forest, far from roads and crowds, experiencing the different sounds, sights and smells of being deep in the forest, cannot be reproduced. This experience is getting ever harder to find. We are very lucky that it is still available to us. It would be cruel and irresponsible to take it away from our children and from future generations.

Below is an appreciation of the nature of Chapman Forest written from a scientist’s approach.

The Nature of Chapman Forest

by Jim Long

In 1998, Chapman Forest was acquired by the state of Maryland with assistance from the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the Conservation Fund. When he announced the completed transaction, Governor Glendening characterized it as “protecting one of the most environmentally, historically, and culturally significant undisturbed tracts along the Potomac River,” and one which would “ensure the preservation of one of Maryland’s most pristine and fragile ecosystems.”

For the last two years, a Citizens’ Advisory Committee and three work supporting work groups, committees convened by Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources, have been considering the stewardship of Chapman Forest. The committees included persons who knew partially the context behind its preservation and wanted to learn more. Many of the persons involved had opposed preservation. People and organizations throughout the state who worked tirelessly to effect its preservation, some for over a decade, also had a voice.

To provide context at a time like this, it may be helpful to examine some of the reasons why so many became so deeply engaged to preserve this remarkable place.

Lucky accidents of history and geography have conveyed to the people of Maryland a unique showcase of natural and historical heritage. The 2200-acre Chapman Forest not only is called home by an unusually diverse web of life but also enhances, and is enhanced by, a surrounding mosaic of preserved lands. Centered between the abutting Mattawoman Natural Environment Area and Mason Neck Wildlife Refuge across the Potomac River, the Forest is a key to regional ecological integrity. The Forest is also rich in cultural history. Its native-Americans, whose longhouses are depicted on Augustine Herrman’s map of 1673, outlasted many in the region but eventually yielded to other settlers. By 1751, these included the Chapmans, a prominent family of the colonial tidewater culture who later erected Mt. Aventine, an antebellum manor house with an unparalleled view of the Potomac River. In 1998, the state of Maryland listened to the many environmental and civic organizations that advocated preservation and acquired the site for its natural and historic values.

Arching over historic Cornwallis Peninsula, Chapman Forest joins the tidal-freshwater Potomac River on its north to the floodplain of renowned Mattawoman Creek on its south. Like most land along the east coast, this coastal-plain site has been subject to the vagaries of more than three centuries of settlement. However, most of it was spared wholesale degradation or intense mechanized disturbance. Some areas, especially the rugged slopes, experienced minimal disruption over time. These factors, the proximity of water, and a varied topography have endowed the Forest with a tapestry of surprisingly diverse habitats.

Here we find: a globally rare habitat in one of the finest examples of a shell-marl ravine forest; aspects of old-growth forest; elevated terrace-gravel forests on ancient soils; loamier mesic woods on extensive alluvial slopes; rolling acres with sandy soils; both forested and open floodplains; many wooded vernal pools and wetlands; sunny wet meadows; profoundly incised landscape with cool, moist, and deeply shaded ravines; perpetual hillside-seeps; a network of over eight miles of sparkling streams, three fourths of which feed sensitive Mattawoman Creek; over two miles exceptionally undisturbed Potomac shoreline that varies from high bluffs to low, sandy beaches; extensive riparian (stream side) habitats; a large, flooded scrub-shrub swamp near the Potomac shore; beaver dams and the successional meadows of abandoned beaver ponds; and a bordering wetland of special state concern.

The quiltwork of habitats is woven through with inhabitants. Only a fraction have been identified, but enough to tell of a distinguished acquisition. The types of oak found in Chapman Forest exceeds the number in Smoky Mountain National Park, 260 times its size. Here also are over three dozen plant species listed in 1994 as rare in Maryland, from diminutive ephemeral wildflowers, to the state’s largest known populations of its critically imperilled Glade Fern, to massive Chinquapin Oaks. Noteworthy too is what is missing. Large segments of the Forest remain unusually free of invasive-exotic plants. This, together with varied, aged, and rare habitat, may help explain the number of uncommon species found here. The World Conservation Union finds that over a fourth of native plants in the United States are at risk of extinction and implicates competition from non-native invasives and habitat loss as the leading causes.

Unexpectedly juxtaposed nature can delight visitors to Chapman Forest. Prickly pear cactus are found in sandy soils only yards from swampy wetlands. A less obvious, but much more significant surprise is the collection of startlingly disjunct plants and wood snails. Termed ‘disjunct’ because they ordinarily reside hundreds of miles up the Potomac, in limestone rich regions, these displaced plants and animals find receptive conditions only in the rare shell-marl ravine forest, where they thrive on soils sweetened, as if with lime, by primeval shells dating back nearly to the lost dinosaurs.

Here too are shells of our own era, also in danger of disappearing. These belong to freshwater mussels deemed state-rare and of national concern. They are scattered along the Potomac shore and occur where Mattawoman Creek receives waters from Chapman Forest. Of these mussels, Mattawoman’s Alewife Floater hints at another noteworthy side to Chapman Forest. Through it threads one of the most productive small streams for spawning Alewife and Blueback Herring in the entire Potomac drainage. Remnants of these once plentiful migratory (or anadromous) fish swim into the Forest during spring spawning runs and hence connect it to waters as remote as the Gulf of Maine, where it is believed some adult Alewives return, via the Chesapeake and Atlantic, to spend their summers. Chapman Forest’s offspring mature downstream in tidal Mattawoman Creek, one of the most celebrated anadromous fish nursery grounds in the Chesapeake Bay system. In a twist of environmental history, Chapman Forest, replete with its spawning stream, also testifies to the severely depleted stocks of our migratory fish, for its Potomac shore was once the site of the Chapmans’ vibrant herring and shad fishery. For two centuries such fisheries up and down the Potomac River presented a gauntlet to returning spawning runs. No longer. The stocks of these far migrating fish have collapsed and the remnants, like shades among submersed shadows, serve as haunting reminders of once what was.

Far flung connections are also made by other migrants in the form of neotropical birds. Chapman Forest’s unusually large size--of southern Maryland’s state lands, only Cedarville State Forest is larger--and relatively intact condition make it a haven for many forest-interior-dwellers, including those that winter in tropical climes. These declining migratory avians require large forests in order to breed free from the predation that abounds at edges of the fragmented woods that increasingly characterize our world. About a dozen interior-dwellers are known to be here, from neotropical migrants like parula warblers to pileated woodpeckers. Additions are certain to be discovered once more thorough surveys are conducted.

Many other birds occur, of course. An aquatic theme leavens the assemblage, with ospreys, green and great blue herons, Louisiana waterthrushes, wood ducks, and many others frequenting either the interior or the Potomac riparian habitats. With an abundance of aged trees along the Potomac, Chapman Forest is ideal for bald eagles, which nest here. It is a rare afternoon when one does not see them silently soaring, their white trim shouting, within the view from Mt. Aventine. The wild turkey, loser to the eagle as national bird, is also present. Its secretive habits hide from view a knee-high bearing and trailing tail like some regal train, but the floor of the Forest is frequently marked by its scratching.

Chapman Forest witnesses important migrations on a scale much smaller than those that inform the woods of Maine waters or tropical forests. Amphibians, born as larvae or tadpoles in the many vernal pools and wetlands, metamorphize to adulthood and then, through nocturnal wanderings, infuse deeply the surrounding woods. There, depending on their tribe, they find refuge and food among moist leaf litter, decaying logs, or branches and trees. Green and Grey tree frogs, Wood Frogs, American Toads, and the charming but elusively burrowing Spotted Salamander are a few examples that can be found many hundreds of yards from their birth waters. Unlike the skinny and use-bruised stream-valley parks that narrowly occasion some of our floodplains, Chapman Forest offers truer habitat to these humble creatures, whose brethren are declining at an alarming pace throughout the planet.

What remains to be discovered and learned from Chapman Forest? Much. Mammals, insects, and reptiles have received even less attention than the animals recounted so far. Is the state imperiled Rainbow Snake, reported here half a century ago, still present? Might endangered tiger beetles join their cousins that presently patrol the Potomac shore’s sands? How many more disjuncts might there be? And what of the ecological interactions between these displaced inhabitants of the Allegheny Plateau and the residents of their adopted inner Coastal Plain? Might bobcats, reported for Stump Neck near Mattawoman’s mouth, eventually find their way to Chapman Forest if much of it is declared Wildlands, as the Governor recommended when it was purchased?

Why do some say that among public lands in southern Maryland, and beyond, Chapman Forest provides unique opportunities for education and reflection? In part, for its outstanding variety of quality habitats and biodiversity. For its globally scarce habitat and intriquing disjunct residents. For its instruction of lives both terrestrial and aquatic and their intimate interconnections. For its distinctive historical attributes. For the stories of environmental history it holds. For the simple quantity of intact landscape that serves to preserve ecological integrity during the ebb and flow of natural disturbances. For a location that helps bind other natural areas and thus leverages public investment. For the exceptional number and variety of inspiring cathedral-size trees.

And for an extensive and uncommonly intact nature that replaces bustle with quietude and rejuvenation, a quality that will increase in value immeasurably as time goes by. In short, for a nature that, when allowed to continue knitting and reknitting, is greater than the sum of its parts and that deserves to be jealously husbanded for generations to come. As stated by E.O. Wilson, Harvard University’s world famous author and scholar, when referring to the humanitarian value of Chapman Forest: To save a remnant of America's natural heritage of this nature would be a gift to future generations unmatchable by any other that could be provided in the same place, on the same land.

Oak species in Chapman Forest v. Smoky Mountain National Park -- an illustration of biodiversity

Habitats of Chapman Forest

Concerns about impacts from excessive equestrian activity

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