The Lancaster Conservancy recently announced its acquisition of 270 acres of forested land in Lower Chanceford Township, York County, within the Susquehanna Riverlands Conservation Landscape. This new preserve will be named after the Reist family, which owned and cared for the land for over 100 years. The conservancy worked with the family and conservation partners, including the Farm and Natural Lands Trust of York, for almost a decade to permanently protect this land. The conservancy has begun an intensive management planning process and hopes to formally open the new Reist Nature Preserve to the public in the next few years.

Funding for the purchase of this tract was secured through the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources (DCNR), with matching funds from the York County Open Space and Land Protection Grant Program, The Conservation Fund, the Reist family, and other private donors.

The new Reist Nature Preserve connects to an over 1,000-acre corridor of contiguously protected natural lands that include Susquehannock State Park, State Game Lands 181, and Brookfield Renewable land donated to the conservancy as part of a large landscape protection effort. The new preserve includes an important part of the viewshed across Lake Aldred from conservancy preserves like Tucquan Glen and Pyfer, House Rock, Reed Run, and Pinnacle Overlook.

Reist Nature Preserve lies within the DCNR Susquehanna Riverlands Conservation Landscape, for which the conservancy serves as the community lead, helping to protect, enhance, and grow economic initiatives within the landscape. The new nature preserve is important to its watershed's resiliency and pollution-absorbing capacity and to the protection of Pennsylvania waterways and the Chesapeake Bay, according to DCNR secretary Cindy Adams Dunn.

The Reist Nature Preserve also provides important natural habitat for birds, amphibians, reptiles, and other wildlife, and it contains nearly a mile of Counselman Run, a scenic and vital headwaters stream that cascades through the property into the Susquehanna River. The property's scenic and steep sloped forests are home to stands of tulip poplar, maple, hemlock, and oak trees, with a lush understory ranging from ferns and ephemerals to mountain laurel.

The Lancaster Conservancy is committed to stewarding the Susquehanna Riverlands Conservation Landscape's nature preserves for public enjoyment, habitat, and natural sustainability.