Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy invites you to help protect the local wild and scenic places you care most about: dunes, wetlands, forests, savannas, prairies, farms and vineyards. It's this diverse beauty that makes the landscape of southwest Michigan such a special place to call home. Working together, we can ensure that future generations will continue to enjoy the extraordinary quality of life our natural lands provide.
Help us protect our natural, historic, and scenic landscapes! Click here to make a donation by credit card. If you would like to mail us a check, click here.
Check out our latest newsletter online in pdf format. Click here.
Strehlow-Oberheu CE protects wildlife resources and reserves right to utilize
alternative energy technologies on-site
Click here to read about Laura Strehlow and Walt Oberheu's efforts to protect their land and also generate renewable energy.
SWMLC, working with Ducks Unlimited, has received a $500,000 grant through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act to save 2,000 acres of wetlands in southwest Michigan. We will be able to protect habitat for waterfowl and other migratory birds, which nest in typical wetland areas and in grassland and under shrubs. Drained lands will be restored.
The properties are located in St. Joseph, Barry, Kalamazoo, Calhoun and Van Buren counties. The donated properties are from conservation-minded landowners who donated their land or development rights to SWMLC.
SWMLC is working to conserve more land around the Barry State Game Area. Click here for more information.
The J.A. Woollam Foundation Challenge has issued SWMLC a big matching challenge for 2010 - $15,000! We will need your help to reach this goal.
Dr. Woollam will match funds from: donations greater than $500, members who increase their giving level, lapsed members who renew their membership, and new donors.
Please help us meet this challenge and fulfill our mission. We can only do it with support from our members - our greatest asset!
SWMLC's Local and National Partners
SWMLC is excited to be working with people and organizations at all levels in the effort to conserve biodiversity locally, regionally, and nationally. Local success stories include the reduction of garlic mustard at preserves in Berrien County that provides immediate benefits for three State-threatened plant species and long-term benefits for at least seven State-listed species of birds, including the threatened red-shouldered hawk, Louisiana waterthrush, and cerulean and yellow-throated warblers. Purple loosestrife once threatened the wetlands of an SWMLC preserve that includes one of the largest populations of spotted turtles in Michigan (recently reclassified from State-threatened to State-endangered). Volunteers released purple loosestrife beetles as a biocontrol at the preserve in 2000 and, after eight years, the beetles finally took off and have reduced the purple wetland destroyer to a mere component of the wetland, not the monoculture it was threatening to become.
Want to learn more about our local and national partners? Here are links to their websites:
Farmhouse + 48 acres of mostly woods backing up to Waubascon Lake
Volunteer Opportunities
SWMLC volunteers provide immeasurable assistance to our conservation efforts, allowing us to broaden our resources. There are many different ways to volunteer, depending on your area of interest.
Volunteers are needed for stewardship work at preserves (click here for a list of upcoming workdays) lopping brush and pulling invasive plants; conducting species inventories; setting up and staffing information tables for events; archiving photographs at the SWMLC office; stuffing envelopes for mailings; and taking photographs at preserves, easements and at special events.
Volunteers also serve on committees such as Outreach Team, Stewardship Team, and Land Protection Team, or on our Board of Directors.
This is only a partial list of ongoing activities requiring volunteer assistance. Your support as a volunteer will have a lasting impact on the natural and scenic features that make our region so unique. Please contact us if you would like more information or check the volunteer box on the membership form, fill out your name and address, and mail or fax it to SWMLC at 6851 S. Sprinkle Road, Portage, MI 49002, 269/324-9760.
Michigan such a special place to call home. Working together, we can ensure that future generations will continue to enjoy the extraordinary quality of life our natural lands provide.
to broaden our resources. There are many different ways to volunteer, depending on your area of interest.