Heartlands Community Advisory Committee

We continue to make steady progress in planning for the future of the Keweenaw Heartlands. Our 29+ member Heartlands Project Community Advisory Committee met three times in 2024 and will meet again in April 2025. This committee provides insight and advisement on the project and guides the work underway to transition the Heartlands to both DNR and local public governance and management. Members of the committee have collectively invested over 1,000 hours so far, much of those hours in five subcommittees focused on:

Building a local, forest governance model
Assessing the financial viability of the future, locally managed portion of the Heartlands
Writing recommendations for future forest management
Determining communication efforts (see photos)
Developing a fund for the start-up of local management.

We anticipate hitting exciting milestones this year, including the introduction of amendments to state legislation, a first step in allowing a very local design of forest governance and management to take shape. We are also working to establish an endowment that will provide some support to long-term management of the locally governed and managed portion of the Heartlands. When we achieve these milestones and others, we will announce them here, so stay tuned!

Save the Date

The Keweenaw Heartlands Project’s next update meeting is Wednesday, April 30, at 6:30 p.m. The location is the Allouez Township Community Center located at 388 Bumbletown Road in Allouez. The Nature Conservancy in Michigan (TNC) and the Michigan Department of Nature Resources (MDNR) will be there to brief the community on the latest with the project and answer questions. We hope to see you there!

Question of the month: If TNC is the temporary owner, who will purchase the Heartlands from TNC and how will they do so?

TNC is working with partners, including the MDNR, to apply for and secure public funding for the acquisition of as much of the Heartlands as possible. While this is a long process, we have already seen success, with the MDNR securing $5 million in a Michigan Natural Resources Trust Fund grant. Ultimately, the goal is for public ownership, governance, and management of the Heartlands. All the partners continue to explore the best option for governance and management structures and it is expected that approximately 1/3 of the property will ultimately be managed by the MDNR and 2/3 will be managed via a community-designed, new local government forest authority.

Photo caption: Several Heart the Heartlands Events were held late last summer and into fall 2024, including an ATV Slow Ride and guided hikes. The event series was an idea of the communication subcommittee of the Heartlands Community Advisory Committe.

Keweenaw Heartlands Community Advisory Committee Working Hard on Milestones