TOLEDO, Ohio — The Girdham Road Sand Dunes in Oak Openings Preserve Metropark will soon be dedicated as Ohio's next nature preserve. 

Next month, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources and Metroparks Toledo will hold a ribbon-cutting dedication event. More details on the event will be released in the near future.

The dedication will offer permanent protection of the habitat within the Oak Openings Preserve. It's the largest of 19 metroparks owned by Metroparks Toledo. 

The dunes stretch across more than 1,300 square miles of land in Wayne and Monroe counties in Michigan, as well as Lucas, Henry, Fulton and Wood counties in Ohio. It contains five plant communities that are rare: black oak lupine barrens, Midwest sand barrens, mesic sand tallgrass prairie, twigrush wet prairie and Great Lakes pin oak/swamp white oak flatwoods.

The Girdham Road Sand Dunes will be the third state nature preserve within a metropark, according to Metroparks Toledo.