BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – A select number of farmers and other private landowners will benefit from action designed to preserve the elbow room military bases require to operate safely and effectively.

An area the size of Connecticut in southern Indiana is one of three sites recently designated as a Sentinel Landscape. The primary objective of the designation is preserving and protecting military mission readiness, operations, testing and training.

As a result, natural resources like rivers, streams and farmland receive protection.

Inside the 3.5-million acre Sentinel Landscape zone in Indiana is Naval Support Activity Crane, the nation’s third largest naval base, near Bloomington, and three other military sites like Camp Atterbury near Edinburgh.

Camp Atterbury, a military training site, is under the Indiana National Guard.

Christian Freitag, president and executive director of the Conservation Law Center in Bloomington, said the idea is to discourage residential or commercial development near military bases by giving cash incentives to private landowners such as farmers to retain ownership of their land.

Freitag said problems can develop if land near military bases is turned into population centers. Military bases need plenty of undeveloped land in their surrounding areas to conduct things like military flyovers and ammunition testing.

“Once in a while they got to make things explode,” he said.

The other recently named Sentinel Landscapes encompassing military bases are in Florida and Texas. There are seven other Sentinel Landscapes across the nation. The program was developed in 2013.

“They have to worry about encroachments. They have to worry about interference from particular kinds of adjacent land use. Sometimes residential development can be a negative thing for them,” Freitag said.

The Conservation Law Center plays an active role with the U.S. Department of Defense and USDA in deciding locations for a Sentinel Landscape designation.

Freitag said a Sentinel Landscape designation gives top priority to private land owners with government assistance programs that help in areas like best land management practices for improving things like soil quality and erosion control.

Farmers and private owners of forests are less likely to sell their ground for development if the federal government contributes to the cost of raising the quality of their property through enhanced land conservation measures.

The Sentinel Landscape in Indiana runs from just south of Indianapolis to near Jasper and from the Illinois border to near Madison close to the Ohio River.

Freitag said the area was chosen because of its number of military bases and density of forests and farmland.

Until now, Indiana groups, including land trusts, have worked with the U.S. Forest Service and the Indiana Department of Natural Resources to protect and conserve small tracts of land.

The Sentinel Landscape designation means the efforts of federal, state and regional organizations, along with other officials and communities, will be combined on matters like educating farmers and other private land owners on soil conservation and repairing eroding banks along streams.

He said other benefits will include protecting water quality in lakes and other bodies of water, adding land to public parks and forests while providing natural buffers around military installations.

Other military sites in the zone are the Lake Glendora Test Facility and the Indiana Air Range Complex, along with six state parks, seven state forests, nine state fish and wildlife areas, 39 state dedicated nature preserves, three U.S. Fish and National Wildlife Service Refuges and the Hoosier National Forest.

“It’s no exaggeration that the Sentinel Landscape is one of the biggest conservation projects in Indiana’s history and it’s an example of how conservation can be an across-the-board win when the right partners work towards common ground,” Freitag said.

He said conservation projects also help economically and improve quality of life.