Healing Lands and Waters

For veterans who have been injured or who are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder as the result of military service, sometimes just getting out in nature can rejuvenate the mind, body and spirit. So when land trusts begin to integrate conservation with programs for veterans who have a disability or are experiencing PTSD, everyone benefits.

Veterans of former and recent conflicts deal with wounds both visible and undetectable to the eye. The battle for these veterans continues after service and often results in withdrawal, depression, anxiety and subsequent financial issues, employment barriers or other difficulties. But healing has begun for many through the growing efforts of land trusts in a collaboration of land and life as land trusts and their conservation partners develop innovative programs for veterans. The results, say organizers, have been truly life affirming and life changing.

For 11 years The Ward Burton Wildlife Foundation has invited veterans to an area known as “The Cove,” approximately 2,500 acres of protected land in Halifax County, Virginia, for camping, archery, shooting, fishing and sometimes just “being.” Says founder, lifelong outdoorsman and former NASCAR driver Ward Burton about the foundation’s “American Heroes” program, “It’s just more of a healing atmosphere when you are around wildlife and natural habitats, just a calming, soothing atmosphere. Everybody can take time, relax and just have fun. It’s rehab for the spirit.”

Burton recalls a veteran attending one of the foundation’s early events who was withdrawn, “really suffering mentally, depressed and in a bad way.” But, Burton adds, “At the end of the third day and on the way back to the airport, nobody could get a word in; he was just a different person.”

According to Executive Director Tom Inge, the foundation has conserved thousands of acres of land in the past 10 years since it became a land trust and began holding and managing conservation easements. Most of the land is in southern Virginia, primarily agricultural or timber-producing.

Inge cites three noteworthy areas: several miles of land along the Nottoway River, home to the Roanoke logperch, a federally endangered fish species; 450 acres in Brunswick County with the greatest population of Michaux’s sumac, a federally endangered plant species; and 8,300 acres of undeveloped timberland and mountain lake called the DeHart Reservoir in Pennsylvania. In addition, TWBWF participates in the Army Compatible Use Buffer program, protecting buffer areas of military installations in rural Virginia and Pennsylvania from encroachment while conserving the lands for public and military needs.

Other local organizations clearly appreciate TWBWF’s work with veterans. In October 2016 the Virginia Conservation Police Association thanked TWBWF “for supporting the 2016 VCPA Wounded Veteran's Hunt in Halifax. Many thanks to Ward (and Ashton) for taking time to visit with the veterans, providing crossbows…and giving them a small gift of appreciation for their service.”

In North Carolina, a 20-year Navy veteran founded the Veterans Employment Base Camp and Organic Garden. Lovay Wallace-Singleton explains that VEBCOG is a cooperative communal garden that reintroduces unemployed as well as disabled and disadvantaged veterans back into the workforce by providing education on agriculture and modified agricultural equipment. According to its mission statement, it “provides a self-paced rehabilitation site in a relaxing outdoor environment.”

Developed in 2012 with assistance from the accredited North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, VEBCOG provides temporary employment and training by teaching skills in urban farming “as a peaceful means of rehabilitation for the veterans.” The program achieves a dual goal: providing veterans post-military transitional employment and job skills while supplying Craven County with certified organic produce.

Originally a potential source of land for the garden, ultimately the NCCLT served as the fiduciary sponsor for the garden to obtain nonprofit status. After being launched with just a $2,000 grant, the project is now 100% financially (and environmentally) sustainable.

Wallace-Singleton proudly notes that 25 veterans have gone through the garden’s internship program to acquire full-time employment, education or disability benefits. And she lauds the assistance of the NCCLT.

“When we first started VEBCOG, working with the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust was crucial to our success. Although I had served 20 years in the military, had a bachelor’s degree in business administration and had worked as a disabled veterans outreach employment specialist, I was not familiar with launching a nonprofit. With the NCCLT as our fiscal sponsor we were able to navigate the 501(c)(3) process, board of directors development and fiscal policy foundation. NCCLT leaders Camilla Herlevich and Janice Allen were never too busy to discuss a process, sit in on a meeting or review a document to ensure that our program was placed on a firm foundation and continue their support to this day. Because we are an organic garden we have found similar goals of preservation, conservation and wildlife protection.”

Wallace-Singleton describes one particular success story she remembers well: “One of the individuals in the internship program was a female Marine who was married, had four kids and was working a security guard position at night so her husband could work during the day. After her internship we hired her as a part-time employee. She worked with us for two years trying to get her GI Bill education benefits straightened out so that she could go back to school. She resigned from her position to enroll in Craven Community College and has acquired her associate degree in social work. Now she is continuing on to complete her bachelor’s degree.”

The accredited Land Conservancy of West Michigan involved veterans from the start when it sought a solution to the community’s lack of recreational opportunities for people with disabilities by creating a universal access trail on the Anderson Woods Nature Preserve, a 76-acre undisturbed forest near the shores of Lake Michigan. The site was entirely flat, which meant the idea could work.

Steven Knox, adjutant for the Disabled American Veterans, Chapter 11 in Muskegon and veteran’s counselor at Disability Network West Michigan, wanted to get veterans involved with trail construction. “Once we had begun discussions, I realized this was something veterans could do. If they were going out to walk, they could go out to work. And because of what I do, I had a lot of people at my disposal.” Indeed, Knox had a group of about 20 veterans with disabilities that he tapped to mark off trails, clear brush and help in a variety of other ways.

“This was a unique project — different from other Americans with Disabilities Act trail projects — because we got the veterans involved in designing the trail so that it met their needs,” says Vaughn Maatman, former director of the conservancy.

“Our vision needed to be shaped by the veterans’ vision and excitement,” he adds. “We needed to make room for their contribution. That’s community conservation.” And on the day the Anderson Woods Nature Preserve opened, motorcycles rolled into the parking lot, and veterans wearing leather vests got off their bikes, families in tow, to proudly show off the trail they had built.

Another trail project, by the accredited Prickly Pear Land Trust in Montana, connects veterans, active military, people with disabilities and the community to the land.

Prickly Pear Land Trust recently purchased two tracts of open space near Fort Harrison military base totaling 556 acres. The Army Compatible Use Buffer program provided a portion of the funding, and Prickly Pear took on the rest with the help of a loan from the accredited Conservation Fund.

Fort Harrison hosts one of the region’s top soldier training centers and the state’s only Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) hospital. Planned trails will link these resources to Spring Meadow State Park and Montana Wild, a wildlife rehabilitation and nature education center.

The trails will offer safe commuter routes accessible to people with disabilities. With them in place, veterans receiving medical care at the VA hospital and their families can escape the sterile confines and enjoy fresh air and exercise. People who work at the fort or the hospital can commute on safe bike routes or take a walk at lunch.

These trails will also give people in wheelchairs, including patients at the VA, a way — in some cases, their only way — to get in the woods. Land trust director Mary Hollow says, “Prickly Pear Land Trust looks for projects that bring diverse partners and community interests together with conservation. This project does exactly that.”

The 58-year old organization Trout Unlimited has found that its Veterans Service Partnership has far-reaching impacts on its mission and beyond.

Participants become involved initially through fly fishing activities, VSP Partnership Coordinator Dave Kumlien notes, but “ultimately we want to bring them into our TU community for a lifetime of service.” Each participant receives a complimentary membership to TU and is automatically assigned to a TU chapter — and some veterans are now working with TU on its youth initiatives, stream rehab and other projects.

Kumlien’s interest in helping develop a TU program was an outgrowth of his volunteer work with several therapeutic fly-fishing programs for veterans with disabilities. He estimates that he has now mentored and instructed more than 1,000 veterans, disabled veterans and their families through the VSP, emphasizing however that this is not just a program for individuals with disabilities. “Our position is that anyone who serves is worthy of our service and recognition. We also recognize the sacrifice that all families and active-duty military have made as well.” Still, he cannot deny that for veterans with a disability the experience can be transformational, and TU’s website cites “miracles, large and small, on a regular and increasing basis.”

In an emotional thank you to the organization, one veteran’s wife bore witness to the power of the program to “help our service members find a peaceful distraction from what they may be dealing with.”

She and her husband, a nine-year Army veteran who served three combat tours with the 82nd Airborne, participated in a couple’s fishing trip to Slough Creek in Yellowstone National Park and experienced their own miracle. “I watched him casting in the water,” she wrote. “I watched him bubble with pride when he caught his first cutthroat trout. I watched stress roll off his body and something was very different, but so very familiar. I saw my husband as he was… before his life had been affected by his time in combat.

“I understood the serenity, the focus, and the silent satisfaction that he found in fishing…and I witnessed there what a quiet river and a fishing rod could do for your soul.”  

This couple’s experience underscores the value in such programs nationwide, and TU’s reach is wide, as about half of its 400-plus chapters have VSPs. Currently Kumlien is working to set up a partnership with the Bureau of Land Management to run some veterans’ fly fishing events on their lands and says Trout Unlimited “would welcome opportunities if land trusts have some ideas for how to bring veterans onto the land for fishing experiences.”

Kelly Saxton is a freelance writer and editor who formerly worked for Paralyzed Veterans of America. Writers Edith Pepper Goltra and Elisabeth Ptak also contributed to this article.