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Indiana Natural Resources Commission Approves State-Dedicated Nature Preserve

Last updated on Thursday, November 19, 2015

(INDIANAPOLIS) - The Indiana Natural Resources Commission on Tuesday approved the 270th state-dedicated nature preserve and a significant addition to an existing preserve.

The new sites are the Wapi-nipi Nature Preserve in Wayne County and the Moraine Addition Nature Preserve in Porter County.

Wapi-nipi is a 114-acre property approximately 5 miles southwest of Richmond and within the Bicentennial Conservation Area announced by Gov. Mike Pence in 2014.

It consists of a tall, west-facing bluff overlooking Whitewater River with the uplands dominated by high quality mixed deciduous forest. The tract is owned and managed by Whitewater Valley Land Trust and was purchased with funding assistance from the Indiana Heritage Trust, and the Bicentennial Nature Trust.

Wapi-nipi is the Miami Indians word for Whitewater.

The Moraine site is 406 acres addition to the existing Moraine Nature Preserve, a 474-acre property owned by the DNR Division of Nature Preserves. The addition protects an area of rolling ridges, steep hills, muck pockets, pot holes, shallow ponds, fens and a tributary of Coffee Creek. It includes a combination of natural communities, including a mature beech-maple forest and a rare sedge meadow.

In other actions, the Commission:

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