Category Archives: Land Trusts (& other private land conservation)

The Ott Preserve and Attacks on Perpetuity

By rbrewer | Published: February 18, 2011

Preserved natural areas are vulnerable.  I don’t mean they’re delicate.  It’s true that some will need a particular kind of management, such as prescribed fire, and some may not tolerate a lot of human traffic, but good-sized natural areas–a few hundred acres–are often fairly robust.  They’re vulnerable not because they’re fragile, but because there are [...]

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New Attack on the Harvey N. Ott Preserve, Battle Creek, MI

By rbrewer | Published: February 10, 2011

The Ott Preserve at the east edge of Battle Creek was the subject of an attack several years ago.  The 260 acres had been preserved early in the 20th century through joint efforts of local naturalists and John Harvey Kellogg.  In 1977, Calhoun County bought the preserve using money from the federal Land and Water [...]

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The Plenteous Summer

By rbrewer | Published: August 14, 2010

When I go outside this summer I’m impressed by the amount of greenery.  I don’t have data, but it’s the greenest summer–the largest volume of foliage–I remember. This makes sense.  The limiting factors for photosynthesis, Biology 101 tells us, are temperature, light, and carbon dioxide.  Translating photosynthesis into plant growth–that is, new biomass–also involves availability [...]

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Colony Farm Orchard: Get on the Visitors’ List ASAP

By rbrewer | Published: July 23, 2010

For 33 years, from 1977 to early 2010, the Colony Farm Orchard was protected by a restrictive covenant.  By virtue of the terms of the gift to Western Michigan University by the state of Michigan, this land was to be kept as open space for public use. Now, as can be seen, WMU is telling [...]

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Michigan League of Conservation Voters: Rep. Robert Jones-100, Colony Farm Orchard-0

By rbrewer | Published: June 3, 2010

The League of Conservation Voters is a national environmental group that is best known for its Environmental Scorecard, where the league tallies the pro- and anti-environmental votes cast by our elected representatives.  I’m glad the organization exists; I strongly support the idea that we should know how politicians vote on conservation issues and hold them [...]

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Asylum Lake Preserve: What Kalamazoo ought to do, part 2

By rbrewer | Published: May 21, 2010

My last post several days ago repeated and updated some remarks I’d made on Earth Day 2004.   It ended with the following comment about the Asylum Lake Preserve situation at that time: Today’s Gazette (24 April 2004) had more good news. After a long process, a Declaration of Conservation Restrictions and Management Framework for the [...]

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A Cleaner, Greener Land: What Kalamazoo Ought to Do. 2010, Part 1.

By rbrewer | Published: April 22, 2010

I made the following remarks at the 24 April 2004 Earth Day celebration at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and included them on the earlier version of my website as Conservation Letter 2 . Today, in boldface , I look at the same topics six years later. When I agreed to give a talk at Earth [...]

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Land Trusts and The Land Trust Movement

By rbrewer | Published: April 17, 2010

This is an updated version of a page from the first version of my website.  It will be moved to the Pages section in a few days. For classification purposes, we can separate land conservation by government and land conservation by private organizations. Two models of private land conservation exist–land trusts and land advocacy organizations. [...]

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Field Trip to Big Island Woods (Cooper’s Island) Coming Up

By rbrewer | Published: April 6, 2010

Saturday 24 April I’m leading a field trip to the Big Island Woods, also referred to as Cooper’s Island.  It’s a trip for the Kalamazoo Wild Ones chapter. “Big Island Woods” refers to an “island” of forest in the middle of Prairie Ronde, southwest Michigan’s largest mesic (tall-grass) prairie. The village of Schoolcraft was founded [...]

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Costa Rica in the Dry Season, February 2010

By rbrewer | Published: March 3, 2010

Katy and I just returned from two weeks in Costa Rica.  As part of an Elderhostel–though the program is now called Exploritas–we visited five sites ranging from mangrove forest along the Pacific Coast to the rather chaparral-like vegetation called paramo around 11,000 feet above sea level on Cerro de la Muerte.  Included were visits to [...]

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