Map source: Blueprint for the Keweenaw Heartlands

KEWEENAW COUNTY – Keweenaw Heartlands Project Manager Julia Petersen provided a brief summary of the The Nature Conservancy’s (TNC) purchase of 32,000 acres of forestland in Keweenaw County at Wednesday’s Keweenaw Heartlands Project Update public meeting at the Allouez Township Hall.

Petersen spoke about TNC’s intent to nominate the approximately 21,000 acres of the Heartlands intended to ultimately be locally and publicly governed and managed for Forest Legacy Program funding. The Forest Legacy Program is a conservation program administered by the National Forest Service in partnership with State agencies to encourage the protection of privately owned forest lands through conservation easements or land purchases.

The nomination is submitted to the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and, if selected as a priority project for the State of Michigan, moves on to consideration at the federal level. The process will take two to three years.

Petersen said when the Heartlands came up for sale in 2021, it had soon become clear that the land was at risk of potentially being purchased parcel by parcel and fragmented.

“There were lots of community members at the time who were concerned that about 15% of the mainland of Keweenaw County came up for sale all at once,” Petersen said. “So, those community members raised a red flag. A lot of those community members were involved in KORC (Keweenaw Outdoor Recreation Coalition), others were local government leaders who were advocating for the land to be kept together in one piece.” TNC already owned three preserves on the Keweenaw Peninsula, totaling approximately 3,000 acres, including the Mary MacDonald Preserve, at Horseshoe Harbor, said Petersen.

Rich Bowman and Emily Clegg, both with TNC, came to Keweenaw County and engaged with local leaders regarding land that was for sale. “We conducted early outreach and public engagement,” Petersen said. “The Nature Conservancy hired a consultant to engage with the community, have conversations.”

The consultant, John Molinaro, of RES Associates, held 58 individual interviews, eight interest group meetings, six public meetings and created and electronic survey 1,885 respondents. In addition, there were many informal conversations between Molinaro, Bowman, and Glegg as the community conversations were going on, Petersen said.

“The outcome of that was that was very clear that the community was concerned about, and wanted to, guarantee to the extent that they could four outcomes:

• Protecting natural and cultural features

• Ensuring public access in perpetuity

• Restore health of the working forest

• Maintaining government tax revenue.

“For some folks it was one of these, for other folks it was two or three or all four,” Petersen said, “but these came up over and over again in those conversations that were hosted by consultant John Molinaro, and the informal conversations between TNC staff and members of the community.”

The result of those efforts and talks culminated in a 90-page document, Blueprint for the Keweenaw Heartlands, which outlines a goal of community-based governance of the Heartlands forest and offering local values and principles for governance and management of the Keweenaw Heartlands well into the future.

“It’s all of the content, a summary of all of the conversations of all of the conversations we’ve had of the survey data,” Petersen said. “It’ all in there.”

The document is available through the Keweenaw Community Foundation website.