Map courtesy of the Keweenaw Community Foundation website

KEWEENAW COUNTY, MI — The Nature Conservancy (TNC) announced in a Thursday release that it has finalized the purchase of the remaining 9,769 acres in the Keweenaw Peninsula known as the Keweenaw Heartlands.

On Oct. 27, TNC announced at a press conference that it has acquired a land purchase in Keweenaw County totaling more than 31,000 acres. At the press conference, Helen Taylor, state director of TNC in Michigan, said the conservancy has secured agreements to purchase what is referred to as the Keweenaw Heartlands.

The initial purchase covered 22,700 acres of commercial forest land, Taylor said, which was purchased from the The Rohatyn Group, also known as TRG.

The Keweenaw Heartlands, Taylor said at the conference, was divided into four large parcels that were for sale, and on Oct. 27, the Conservancy acquired three of them. Those are the Point, which is the most eastern two blocks, the middle parcel, called Harbor View, and also the most southern parcel, called Little Betsy. The combined price for those, said Taylor, was $27.2 million. However, TRG and the Conservancy could not reach agreement on the fourth parcel. She said a “conservation-minded buyer” stepped in to purchase the remaining 9,769 acres from TRG and agreed to sell the land to TNC. With the final land purchase now complete, TNC now owns , including the land’s mineral rights, trails and historical structures. The land will remain open to the public under the Michigan Commercial Forest Program and on community tax rolls and by the end of the 2022 calendar year, the Conservancy will have purchased that parcel. That purchase was finalized this month.

“I want to sincerely thank the conservation buyer who saw the value in protecting this land and shared our vision for the Keweenaw Heartlands,” Taylor said in the Thursday release. “Protecting the Keweenaw Heartlands is a global priority for The Nature Conservancy, and I am thrilled we finalized this purchase so everyone can enjoy and appreciate these iconic lands and waters forever.”

Taylor said that the next step is for TNC to work with the community and the Michigan Department of Natural Resources to determine the future management and uses of the land. This will be done with input and direction from a community stakeholder committee, made up of nearly 20 community leaders including elected officials, tribal leaders, and representatives from the outdoor recreation and tourism industries.

Dan Eichinger, director of the Michigan Dept. of Natural Resources (DNR) said that his department joined Taylor at the Oct. press conference. He said the transaction is important and one he thinks everyone at the conference had been following since the announcement that TRG had listed the property for public sale. The total price tag for the commercial lands was stated at $$43,193,000.

The group held its first meeting earlier this year and will reconvene Jan. 25 and 26. TNC will also hold a community informational meeting at 6:00 p.m. on Jan. 25 at the Keweenaw Mountain Lodge to provide an update to the public and answer questions.

“The local planning committee will serve an important role in the months and years ahead as the community charts a course for this land,” Taylor said. “This community-led approach has never been done before at TNC and is a rarity in land conservation. We’re excited to see the community’s vision take shape and encourage anyone who’s interested in learning more to attend the meeting in January.”

The planning discussions follow a nearly yearlong, intensive community visioning process led by Rural Economic Success (RES) Associates’ John Molinaro. Over the past year, RES conducted nearly 60 one-on-one interviews with local leaders, conducted public meetings engaging more than 300 residents and received completed surveys from nearly 2,000 people to understand what they value most about this land.

The Conservancy recognizes the area as a global priority for both biodiversity and climate resiliency, and an opportunity to protect an extraordinary region for both nature and people. TNC states that the region was formed from one-billion-year-old lava flows and shaped by glacial ice and the waves of the largest freshwater lake in the world – Lake Superior – the Keweenaw Peninsula is one of the most unfragmented, climate resilient forested and freshwater areas of the central United States.

For information on the land project, please visit the Keweenaw Area Community website at https://www.keweenawcommunityfoundation.org/keweenaw-land-project