Skip to main content

“I give my pledge as an American to save and faithfully to defend from waste the natural resources of my country – its soil and minerals, its forests, waters, and wildlife.” – The Boy Scout Conservation Pledge, 1947

Scouting America (formerly the Boy Scouts of America) lives by an Outdoor Code, one that strives to treat the outdoors as our heritage, to show respect for all land and land users, and to be conservation-minded. This Outdoor Code represents a land ethic that is alive and well in Berks County thanks to a partnership between the local Hawk Mountain Council of Scouting America and Berks Nature.

For the past 54 years, the Hawk Mountain Council has operated the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation: 670 acres of rocky woodlands, A-frame tent platforms, and summer memories.

Campers here – about 2,600 each summer – don’t simply indulge in the joys of hiking, biking, and fishing, they are taught ethics of responsible outdoor recreation and clock “conservation hours” by participating in the ecological stewardship of the camp, from habitat construction to erosion control along trails to invasive species removal.

In January 2025, Berks Nature established a conservation easement on 500 wooded acres of the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation, protecting not just the land but also the camp’s legacy of teaching and modeling environmental stewardship for generations to come.

For Brant Portner, a member of the Executive Board for the Hawk Mountain Council, protecting the Scout Reservation was a personal calling.

Entrance to the recently preserved Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation.

He himself first attended the Reservation’s summer camp as a Cub Scout in the early 2000s, returning later as a Boy Scout and then finally a counselor. The sights and sounds of camp – humid days, star-studded nights, and the unrelenting chorus of cicadas drifting through breezy tent flaps – live on in Brant’s heart as a poignant reminder of a childhood lost for many modern children.

Facing tight budgets, councils of Scouting America across the country are choosing to sell their camps. The Shikellamy Scout Camp in northern Berks met such an end. In its place, a private development of homes was built, eliminating valuable forests and one of the most significant camping and access points for the Appalachian Trail in Berks County.

“My fear was always losing this place that I grew up in,” professed Brant.

When Brant joined the Hawk Mountain Council’s Executive Board, he was quick to become one of the more outspoken supporters of the conservation easement. After about two years of discussion, the Board voted unanimously in favor of the conservation easement, protecting in perpetuity the stomping grounds of Brant’s youth.

Berks Nature secured $1.2 million collectively from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation & Natural Resources (PA DCNR) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) to purchase the conservation easement from the Hawk Mountain Council, providing new financial sustainability to support both the camp’s activities and the land’s stewardship.

But the benefits of this easement extend well beyond the boundaries and activities of the camp.

View across the lake at the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation. Photo credit: Brant Portner

The green ribbon of the Kittatinny Ridge – a verdant mountain range bending through 185 miles of the Commonwealth – surrounds the Scout Reservation. The Kittatinny’s ecological and recreational value is nationally and locally recognized for its biodiversity and climate resiliency.

The Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation itself boasts the same characteristics attributed to the Ridge’s ecological prowess: a varied topography of peaks and valleys, thick interior woodlands that shelter sensitive headwater streams, and a mosaic of habitats to support a myriad of wildlife.

Despite the Kittatinny Ridge’s ecological resilience, it remains vulnerable to human interference, spurring Berks Nature and other organizations to mobilize as protectors of the Ridge. Since 1996, the USDA’s Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) has supported the protection of over 54,000 acres along the Kittatinny Ridge.

This easement in particular was the missing puzzle piece needed to protect a contiguous expanse of rich and rugged forest along the Ridge, bridging the once vulnerable gap between State Game Lands 80 and the federally protected Appalachian Trail lands.

While the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation’s campers hike its trails, paddle its lake, and make memories to last a lifetime, its lush forests, rocky slopes, and tumbling creeks quietly purify the air, nurture resident and migratory wildlife, and sustain clean drinking water for the Ridge’s local and downstream communities.

“It is an easement that benefits the wider community,” says Brant, “which is what Scouting is all about.”
Brooke Leister, Land Protection Specialist for Berks Nature, elaborated further, “Places like the Hawk Mountain Scout Reservation inspire and celebrate an appreciation for the natural world that our global community so sorely needs; its protection is a huge win for both the community and wildlife, now and forever.”
Written by Regan Moll-Dohm, Director of Communications

One Comment

Leave a Reply