family features
Local Businesses Who Give Back
Trusting the Land
Conserving Natural Places
By Evelyn Kirkwood
The land has pulled Peter Ter Louw since he was a kid in New Jersey. He spent his childhood exploring the mountains and streams in his backyard. Later he grew to love fishing and hunting with his father in the Adirondacks. While attending Hope College in Holland, Michigan, he discovered Lake Michigan and its dunes and bluffs. The landscape amazed him, and now he works to steward and protect those natural spaces. “I could not imagine a more satisfying career,” says Peter about his role as Executive Director of the Southwest Michigan Land Conservancy (SWMLC). A land trust or conservancy is a non-profit organization that provides private mechanisms to conserve natural, agricultural and cultural landscapes. Individual land owners and families can work with land trusts to conserve land they care about. SWMLC was born in Kalamazoo in 1991. A relatively young organization, it was the idea of members of the biology departments of Western Michigan University and Kalamazoo College and area naturalists who were concerned about the loss of habitat in southwest Michigan. It now protects and cares for almost 11,000 acres in nine Michigan counties including Cass, Berrien and St. Joseph. About twentyfive percent is land the trust owns, which they call “preserves,” and the remainder is protected through conservation easements. “That’s a perpetual legal agreement between the landowner and land trust to restrict the property from future development,” says Peter. 36 THE FAMILY MAGAZINE | OCTOBER 2012
While there are tax incentives to donate property or establish conservation agreements, often it is the deep love of the land that motivates owners to protect it from future development. Spirit Springs Preserve in Cass County, Michigan is a shining example. SWMLC identified the property when it conducted a land survey to locate important wetland areas in the Rocky River watershed, a tributary to the St. Joseph River. SWMLC approached the owners about protecting this land which helps maintain clean water for the rivers. The match was made in land trust heaven. Vernon and Martha Miller not only wanted to see the property conserved, but shared with the public. Today Spirit Springs’ wetlands, lake, woods and meadow trails can be enjoyed by all. Across the state line and west, the Shirley Heinze Land Trust has similar goals in Lake, Porter and LaPorte counties in Indiana, with the potential to offer their services to St. Joseph County as well. Named after Shirley Heinze, a local amateur naturalist who was passionate about the dunes, the Trust also partners with several school districts to offer Mighty Acorns, an outdoor education program aimed at fostering understanding and stewardship of unique ecosystems in northwest Indiana. One of those ecosystems is Ambler Flatwoods where visitors can hike through a boreal forest, uncommon in Indiana and unique to LaPorte County. This 208-acre gem is home to the rare Blanding’s Turtle, as well as White Pine and Paper Birch, tree species more typically found in northern Michigan and Canada.