Michigan Land Conservancies Receive National Recognition
and Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and Leelanau Conservancy recently received Land Trust Excellence Awards at Rally 2012: The National Land Conservation Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Four other Michigan conservancies received national accreditation for meeting national standards for land trust excellence.
October 16, 2012
By Heart of the Lakes
Grand Ledge —Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy and Leelanau Conservancy recently received Land Trust Excellence Awards at Rally 2012: The National Land Conservation Conference in Salt Lake City, Utah. Four other Michigan conservancies received national accreditation for meeting national standards for land trust excellence.
“We applaud the great work of these conservancies and the national recognition they deserve,” said Julie Stoneman, Interim Executive Director of Heart of the Lakes Center for Land Conservation Policy, the statewide association of Michigan’s nonprofit land conservancies.
The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC) and the Leelanau Conservancy, both founding organizations of Heart of the Lakes, were singled out for the recognition based on their contributions to federal policy and the conservation programs within the Farm Bill. Glen Chown, Executive Director of GTRLC, and Brian Price , Executive Director of the Leelanau Conservancy, accepted the award on behalf of their organizations.
“This honor recognizes the significance of the innovative land protection work of our two conservancies – including and perhaps especially our joint farmland preservation efforts. Sharing the impact that farmland preservation has on our land-based economy helped to inform and increase bi-partisan Congressional support for the permanent protection of working lands. I am proud of the role our two organizations have played in helping to achieve that positive outcome – one that bodes well for our future,” said Glen Chown.
Michigan conservancies that received national accreditation at the Rally include the Chippewa Watershed Conservancy (Mt. Pleasant), Land Conservancy of West Michigan (Grand Rapids), North Oakland Headwaters Land Conservancy (Clarkston), and the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy (Portage). All four groups participated in the Advancing Conservancy Excellence program, a partnership between Heart of the Lakes and the Land Trust Alliance that helps ready land conservancies for accreditation. These four groups bring the total of accredited land conservancies in Michigan to nine, 10 including The Nature Conservancy, a national organization that works in the state, which also received national accreditation this fall.
