TRAVERSE CITY — A $20.4 million federal award is fueling a model conservation project for area fishery, farmland and forest preservation.
The major investment in northern Michigan from the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Partnership Program supports Michigan’s first Indigenous-led multi-agency effort for comprehensive waterway ecology. It addresses past and present development threats challenging the region’s natural heritage.
It is the third funding award since 2016 presented to the Tribal Stream and Michigan Fruitbelt Collaborative for its work in northern Michigan.
The Collaborative, which formed in 2015, consists of Grand Traverse Band of Odawa and Chippewa Indians, the Conservation Resource Alliance, Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and the Leelanau Conservancy, with support from a dozen federal, state, and local government agencies and nonprofit organizations.
“It’s a U.S. and community focus on a high level for shared goals and leverages funding the project needs of the region,” said D.J. Shook, CRA biologist/project manager. “It’s the synergy of working together and layering on protections.”
The Tribe provides leadership in this holistic approach to combine initiatives in conserving lands in high-risk locations and in restoring stream connectivity for securing watershed integrity.
“It’s the first of its kind in the nation and sets the stage for working with our tribes across the nation, “said Laura Rigan, farmland program manager for Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy. “To be a part of the partnership is amazing.”
Award dollars fund preservation and restoration of fragmented fisheries and wildlife corridors by replacing road culverts restricting native fish passage to spawning and feeding areas, ultimately protecting the Great Lakes.
Culverts supported area transportation beginning during the region’s settlement period. Tribe Fish, Wildlife and Soil Conservationist Melissa Witkowski said the initial construction of stream crossings didn’t account for long-term sustainability and leads to the potential for pollution and harmful sudden collapse. The newly funded project effort targets fixes to 29 problematic stream crossing structures throughout the 1836 Treaty of Washington Ceded Territory.
Of the total award dollars, $3.7 million is allocated for stream restoring free flow to the Jordan River, Pine River, Mitchell Creek, Manistee River and others in northern Michigan. During 2024, restoration work continues thanks to previous funding. Also in 2024, agreements will be established for future work based on new funding.
“The decisions we make today should result in a sustainable world seven generations from now,” Witkowski said “It respects the world in which we live, as we are borrowing it from future generations.”
Partnering land conservancies support resource protections for the generations to come by facilitating permanent restrictions on agriculture and forest land under development pressure.
Vulnerable farmers faced with overwhelming challenges such as labor issues, increasing operating costs, climate change and market issues find selling property as a solution. Local economies suffer and the region’s rural culture is diminished when farmers find no other solutions.
“Rural lands are an important part of our quality of life,” said Kim Hayes, Leelanau Conservancy Farm Protection Director. “It would be a loss so much larger than we understand.”
Conservancies promote land protection through voluntary conservation easement agreements targeting land with high value conservation elements. Agreements permanently restrict how land is used in perpetuity. In the case of farmers, they retain rights to keep their land and may continue to farm. Farmers are paid the difference between their land worth as farmland versus its worth as residential land. Each agreement is adapted to the property owner’s wishes for the future of their property.
Currently, 20 Leelanau County properties are on a conservation easement wait list. Current funding provides $9.9 million for as many as 18 Leelanau County conservation easement projects. Hayes said the first six applications supported by new dollars will be submitted in November for federal funding approval.
GTRLC aims to use its share of the award and the conservation easement tool to protect 1,900 acres of agriculture and forestland over the project’s five-year timeline.
“There’s a network of landowners who want to protect their land and we celebrate them,” Hayes said.
To learn more about the work and accomplishments of the Tribal Stream and Michigan Fruitbelt Collaborative, go to youtube.com/watch?v=gahNy2_1yvE to view the documentary “Restoring Aquatic Ecosystems in Northwest Lower Michigan” which first aired on WCMU Public Television.