KEWEENAW, Mich. (WZMQ) – The Nature Conservancy (TNC) purchased over 32 thousand acres of forestland in Keweenaw County in the fall of 2022, yesterday they held a meeting focusing on updates to the Keweenaw Heartland project. TNC collected data from the forest environment to better understand how to protect it.
The newly appointed project manager Julia Petersen hopes to ensure these lands remain forested and open to public use but commented that TNC is still working through what public *ownership* of these lands would look like in the future.
“This was in response to stakeholders and residents saying that data is really important in understanding how to manage, eventually when this transitions into some sort of public ownership structure we wanna be able to hand that information to those individuals so that they can hit the ground running,” commented Petersen.
TNC said they’ve also partnered with a group Michigan Tech that’s helping with the cultural and ecological inventory. TNC will be having another public meeting coming up in the fall.
Click here for more information on The Nature Conservancy and the updates to the Keweenaw Heartland Project.
