How Wisconsin Land Trusts Are Adapting After Knowles-Nelson’s Demise

An aerial photo of the Little Sturgeon Estuary in Door County. Photo by Dan Eggert and courtesy of the Door County Land Trust.

Wisconsin’s land trusts are moving forward with expanding protection efforts, despite the loss of a major state preservation program.

For nearly 40 years, the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Grant Program provided state funding for nature preservation projects around Wisconsin. Trusts would often see Knowles-Nelson cover about 50 percent of the cost of acquiring land.

In June this year, Knowles-Nelson’s funding expired after the state Legislature failed to extend it.

Now, Door County Land Trust (DCLT) Executive Director Emily Wood said trusts aren’t giving up, but need to be more strategic in how they secure funding for projects. On WPR’s “Wisconsin Today,” Wood said 80-90 percent of her organization’s project funding used to come from state and federal grants.

“But we’re trying to work to protect as much as we can right now while we still can, because Door County is so special ecologically,” Wood said. “Knowing that 50 percent of every project is going to have to be made up is a huge struggle.”

Over the decades, $1.3 billion in funds from Knowles-Nelson supported land and water projects. According to the program, nearly every single Wisconsin resident lives within five miles of a Knowles-Nelson-assisted project.

Knowles-Nelson funding helped serve as a sort of “seal of approval” to land trust projects, said  Charles Carlin, chief strategy officer for Gathering Waters, an alliance of 40 land trusts around Wisconsin. Without the program, he said land trusts are still moving forward and even “thriving,” but that the lack of the program’s funds is making the work of trusts more difficult.

“Once a land trust was approved by the DNR for a Knowles-Nelson grant, it was really a way to turn around to the local community and say, ‘We have a really high-value conservation project here, help us get it across the finish line,’” Carlin said. “That part is certainly more difficult now.”

In Door County, the DCLT is in the midst of finalizing the acquisition of a new 338-acre preserve along Little Sturgeon Bay. Wood said the trust has been talking with area landowners about turning the place into a preserve for the last decade or so. She said she expects the project to be finalized later this year.

“All of the great sport fish that keep recreational activities in our waters alive, all of them can be traced back to this significant creek,” she said. “Because the health of that creek is so significant to the entire health of the Green Bay watershed, we were really interested in protecting it.”

And DCLT’s work on the Little Sturgeon is moving forward without Knowles-Nelson funding. Wood said they’re lucky that the ecological significance of this land is helping to secure funding through other federal grant programs alongside private donations.

Wisconsin land trusts continue preservation efforts, even without Knowles-Nelson funding was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.