Glacial Lakes Conservancy is a private nonprofit land trust committed to permanent land protection through private landowner conservation, stewardship of its preserves and easements, advocacy, and community leadership.
Local and regional land trusts are directly involved in conserving land and water resources for the natural, recreational, scenic, historic and productive values.
Our programs of preservation encompass 3 general categories of land – working lands, urban lands and rural lands. Working lands include dairy farms, orchards, vineyards, and community-supported farms, as well as productive forests. Glacial Lakes is one of the few Wisconsin land trusts working with farmers to preserve our agrarian heritage. Our urban targets focus on the preservation and enhancement of parklands and natural resources close to or within residential communities, providing urban dwellers with the respite and beauty of nature. Our natural lands program sets aside natural open space for such benefits as bird migration stopovers, riparian corridors, groundwater recharge, pollution attenuation, and protection of intact native plant communities.
Ecological Significance
The lands and water of the Lake Michigan Basin are crucial, both for wildlife and as resources for human use. Lake Michigan itself, as the second largest in the Great Lakes Basin, supports a large commercial and sport fishery and provides drinking water and recreation to many communities. As wildlife habitat, the Lake Michigan Basin supports a unique and impressive array of biological diversity, including many species that occur nowhere else in the world. The Lake Michigan Flyway is utilized by over 300 species of birds as a major international thoroughfare.
There is a need to protect important environmental corridors – wetlands, woodlands, streams, open lands – and to conserve a land base for the food and energy needs of the future.
