Nature has our backs. Let’s return the favor.
Do something good for nature and donate to SWMLC today!
Bucking the Trend
Protecting rural character in the face of development
Nature has our backs. Let’s return the favor.
Do something good for nature and donate to SWMLC today!
Bucking the Trend
Protecting rural character in the face of development
Nature has our backs. Let’s return the favor.
Do something good for nature and donate to SWMLC today!
Bucking the Trend
Protecting rural character in the face of development
There’s a large area on the west side of Gull Lake that might look different if it weren’t for Woody Boudeman and his family.
Without their conservation efforts, those golden autumn leaves might not frame East BC Avenue in that same satisfying way, those big fields of green could be filled with houses, and the secluded ponds just beyond that line of trees might be gone. The Boudemans have worked with Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy (SWMLC) for many years to protect the rural character and beauty of this area, and it shows.
Earlier this week, Woody met with SWMLC’s Emily Wilke and Pete Ter Louw to donate a conservation easement on another 54 acres that includes farmland, a restored grassland, and a human-made pond with wetlands. Combined with land that Woody has already protected, the addition creates a 742-acre agricultural/natural area that can never be developed on the northeast corner of the busy intersection where highways M-43 and M-89 meet, just north of the village of Richland.
Woody is one of SWMLC’s founding board members and has long been committed to protecting farmland and nature in this area where land values are high and development pressure is strong. New neighborhoods, an expanding commercial corridor, and a proposed gravel pit are just some of the recent land-use activities that prompted him to purchase the 54-acre piece with the sole intention of protecting it.
The Boudeman Family has conserved over 1,100 acres of farm fields, forests, grasslands, small lakes, streams, and pretty views in Barry and Kalamazoo Counties by donating conservation easements to SWMLC. With this latest addition, they have conserved over one square mile of land on the west side of Gull Lake. And while the Boudemans’ land remains private and is not a public preserve, the conservation easements they have placed will protect it forever, no matter who owns it in the future.
If ever you’re driving through that tunnel of tree shade on East BC Avenue, marveling at flocks of cranes polishing off harvest leftovers in a farm field north of Richland, or imagining the secret local spots where wildlife lives without being bothered by people – thank the Boudeman Family for their generosity and deep commitment to conservation. Things would be very different without them!
Drone photos: Bruce Howe.
Other photos: Ed Ihling, Amelia Hansen, SWMLC Land Protection Team.
Read more about the Boudeman Family’s past conservation work with SWMLC.
