Forever undeveloped

RELATED VIDEO One Georgia monastery protects and cultivates local wetlands. CNN's Marsha Walton reports. Windows Media 28K 80K

April 26, 1999
Web posted at: 5:27 p.m. EDT (2127 GMT)

CONYERS, Georgia (CNN) -- Amid the urban sprawl of Atlanta's suburbs lies an oasis -- an unexpected sanctuary not only for the monks who live there, but also for wildlife.

For more than 50 years, the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers has been a calm in the midst of the storm of growth that has swept through Georgia.

"The monastery represents twenty-two-hundred acres that literally is an environmental island, surrounded by urbanization," says Art Berger of Wetland Environmental Technologies, a company that specializes in wetland restoration. "So, this is one of the last resources for wildlife in the area."

But it was not always this way. The land had been drained for farmland before the monastery bought it in 1944.

After many attempts to find a way to raise money for the land, and after rejecting several offers from developers, the monks finally agreed to a plan from Wetland Technologies to resurrect the property.

"There's a kind of philosophical reason, I think, behind our attempting to restore the wetlands," says Father Methodeus, a member of the monastery.

Berger says wetlands also serve important practical functions, such as regeneration of freshwater resources through the aquifer and storm water retention.

The company also has planted hundreds of trees on the site that can be continuously harvested and replaced.

These activities led the federal government to establish the site as a wetlands mitigation bank. This means companies that want to develop in this ecologically sensitive region must agree to help pay for or maintain the wetland.

"When we were approached about the wetlands, it seemed like a good idea to put this land back under federal jurisdiction," Father Methodius says. "So forever this wetland now will be undeveloped,"

"We have a conservation easement in perpetuity, meaning that this site will never be touched again," Berger says.

Correspondent Marsha Walton contributed to this report.

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