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Michigan’s natural assets — part of recipe for economic recovery
By DAVE DEMPSEY
To Helen Taylor, one of the answers to Michigan’s economic challenges is clear: protect the state’s world-class lands and associated natural resources.
In a state where tourism generated $18.8 billion in revenue in 2006, accounting for $1.1 billion in state and local taxes and supporting more than 200,000 jobs statewide, that might seem obvious. But the importance of the state’s natural resources often is overlooked in the continuing search for economic growth strategies.
Taylor, state director for The Nature Conservancy (TNC), says Michigan’s economic development agenda must include reforms not only in taxes and other business climate factors, but also in the state’s approach to the very assets on which some of its economic drivers — tourism, agriculture and timber — depend.
“Our natural assets drive our culture and quality of life. We often forget about the importance of investments in those,” she said.
“We also need to consider our work as an investment in our ‘brand,’ which in Michigan includes our forests, water and shoreline, and these huge Great Lakes.”
With the assistance of the Mott Foundation, TNC and many colleagues in the land conservation community are brokering historic agreements to protect more of the state’s land base and keep it viable for tourism as well as other industries, including forest products and farming.
Since 2000, Mott’s support has been pivotal in two monumental land deals that typify conservation of “working lands.” At the same time, the Foundation has helped expand the capacity of smaller land conservancies, and supported grantees that educate policymakers and the public on the significant role that land conservation can play in the state’s economy.
Land deals
Since 2004, Mott has made grants totaling $10 million to TNC for the $58-million Northern Great Lakes Forest Project. This public-private partnership — including TNC, the State of Michigan, the Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund, the U.S. Forest Service, the Forestland Group, foundations and private individuals — protects 271,338 acres of hardwood forest and picturesque waters ranging across Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.
TNC owns outright more than 23,000 acres within the Two Hearted River watershed.
The rest of the land — 248,000 acres — will continue to be owned by the Forestland Group and remain on local tax rolls. However, these lands will be restricted for future development and use under a permanent conservation easement that allows sustainable forestry to continue while protecting the biological integrity of the land and water, and guaranteeing public recreation access.
Tina Hall, TNC’s director of conservation programs in Michigan, says the deal had its roots in concern over the continuing subdivision and fragmentation of Upper Peninsula land.
“A stable wood source coming out of the U.P. is no longer a given. This easement will assure small mills, value-added forest products companies and others that some of the wood source is guaranteed in perpetuity.
“The same argument goes for the recreation value of the property. It’s guaranteed into the future and not dependent on future landowners’ decisions.”
In another large conservation agreement, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC) received from Mott three grants totaling $7.75 million, plus a $6.15-million, interest-free loan toward the purchase of more than 5,800 acres of farms, forests and grasslands and two miles of Great Lakes shoreline dunes near Arcadia in the northwest Lower Peninsula.
“The Great Lakes are Michigan’s most magnificent natural resource and one of our greatest economic assets,” said Megan Olds, communications director for the GTRLC. “As we transform our state’s manufacturing-dependent economy, it makes sense to invest in our best and most distinctive assets.”
Brian Putney is one of the landowners now farming on land protected by the conservancy. After purchasing approximately 250 acres of farmland from the conservancy, which holds a conservation easement preventing further development, Putney now has 1,200 acres producing apples, cherries and beef. The conservancy’s first round of farmland sales resulted in 1,119 acres going to local farmers with permanent easement restrictions.
Putney, a third-generation farmer, hopes his two daughters and son, and other young people, will have the opportunity to go into agriculture if they want to.
“The biggest accomplishment of land deals like this is that they preserve large chunks of agricultural land. It’s very important to us in this day and age. We get encroached on by development all the time. This removes that threat and frees us up to farm the way we need to.”
New tools in the toolbox
Protecting land resources as an economic development strategy also involves building the strength and sophistication of the growing number of land conservancies, which are nonprofit organizations that identify important lands and work with owners to ensure their stewardship.
The community of Michigan land conservancies grew from 29 in 1997 to more than 40 in 2008. And the combined acreage they protect has nearly tripled, from 46,294 to more than 125,000 (not including the Northern Great Lakes Forest Project).
Because of such rapid growth, Mott has made strategic grants to help these conservancies develop the tools they need to do their jobs.
In 2001 the Foundation pledged $7.5 million to the Conservation Fund to capitalize the Great Lakes Revolving Loan Fund. The revolving fund provides up-front money that small land trusts can use to acquire critical lands when they come on the market.
Since the fund’s establishment, it has made possible the acquisition of eight major Michigan tracts of land, including an addition to Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore and the scenic tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula in the Upper Peninsula.
“Because we recognize that tourism is a key industry for the state, protecting the Great Lakes dunes is absolutely critical to attracting visitors,” said Peg Kohring, the Conservation Fund’s Midwest director.
Mott also has supported the Michigan Dune Alliance project, which has linked several conservancies along the Lake Michigan shore through a strategic plan to protect and manage key properties.
Tom Bailey, executive director of the Little Traverse Conservancy in Petoskey, says government actions are no longer enough to conserve sufficient land to power the state’s economic comeback.
“The days of conservation and resource management as solely the responsibility of government are long gone. There’s an increasingly important role for the private and philanthropic sector in conservation.”
Public education and policy
Mott grantmaking also includes support for organizations educating policymakers and the public about land conservation as an economic asset for the state.
One such grantee is the Lansing-based Heart of the Lakes Center for Land Conservation Policy, created in 2004. The center promotes policies that facilitate land conservation. In part because of the center’s education work, state lawmakers revised property tax law in 2006 to remove a “pop-up” tax on the transfer of land if the parcel is under a permanent conservation easement.
Heart of the Lakes also has launched a communications campaign to make lawmakers and opinion leaders aware that natural resources are important to the traditional and new industries the state needs to retain and attract new workers and residents. In late 2007, the center released three studies on the economic impact of Michigan’s natural resources, including one about the impact of tourism on local communities.
“Businesses think in terms of return on investment in their growth strategies,” said Rachel Kuntzsch, Heart of the Lakes executive director.
“To thrive in changing economic times, Michigan leaders must recognize the return on investment that a strong and healthy natural resource base has on our economic prosperity.”
Organizational capacity building
Mott also has provided support to train staff and develop the resources of land conservancies across Michigan.
A prime agent in enhancing the capacity of these conservancies, not only in Michigan but also nationally, is the Land Trust Alliance (LTA), whose trainings and programs encourage more landowners to protect their land, help conservation leaders be more effective at saving land and build strong organizations that can be counted on to protect land in perpetuity.
One grant made to the alliance helped galvanize the Lake Superior Land Trust Partnership, which brought together about 20 conservancies to identify, and work to protect, some of the most outstanding lands and waters feeding the world’s largest lake by surface area.
“Each of these land trusts was feeling isolated on its own,” said Renee Kivikko, former Midwest director of the alliance. “But this initiative made all the difference in garnering the expertise and creating the relationships needed to implement a strategy for the future of the region.”
One indicator of the partnership’s success, she said, is that state departments of natural resources call on it for various fields of expertise.
The Keweenaw Conservancy, based in Houghton, is a member of the partnership.
Its executive director, Evan McDonald, says the increased sophistication made possible by the partnership has contributed to recent successes and current projects, including a new effort to protect, through a conservation easement, a prime hunting and fishing area along the Pilgrim River.
The link between land conservation and economic growth, McDonald says, couldn’t be clearer.
“The character of our region is one of the things that attracts tourists as well as new residents. The clean air, water and outdoor recreational opportunities, as well as the look and feel of the place, bring people here and keep people here.
“We also have quite a few high-tech companies that formed here, and they picked this place to live in part because of the quality of life. These are high-paying jobs for our community.”