Community members show love for northern environment through volunteering
The slogan of the Little Traverse Conservancy is “Protecting the North country we all love.” This is not only a promise made by the organization, but one community members live by as well.
Now entering its 50th year of service to the community, the Little Traverse Conservancy has its volunteers to thank for the amount of work the organization has been able to accomplish.
“This community really cares because it's such a beautiful place and they want it to stay this way,” said Anne Fleming, director of community outreach and communications.
According to Fleming, in 2021 the conservancy completed 26 land protection projects, 12 of which were new nature preserves. These added to the already thousands of acres of land under Little Traverse Conservancy's protection, spanning across Chippewa, Mackinac, Emmet, Cheboygan, and Charlevoix counties.
Most recently, the conservancy announced the new Seberon “Boo” Lizenburger Nature Preserve, located off of Five Mile Creek Road north of Harbor Springs. The 40-acre preserve was dedicated in memory of Liesel and Gow Litzenburger’s father and Little Traverse Conservancy co-founder Seberon “Boo” Litzenburger. The preserve includes nearly a quarter mile of Five Mile Creek and now features one mile of trails (out and back), a newly-built viewing platform overlooking the creek, and a newly-built bridge that crosses the creek.
Out of hundreds of land preserves, around 150 of them are monitored by volunteers the conservancy calls land stewards. Each volunteer is assigned a preserve and goes out on their own time to clear brush and invasive species, check the condition of structures like bridges, boardwalks and signs, report unsafe trail conditions, as well as anything else the conservancy should be aware of.
According to volunteer coordinator Cacia Lesh, the amount of time volunteers have to dedicate to the Little Traverse Conservancy varies depending on the volunteer’s schedule. Many of the volunteers are retirees with more time to spare.
“We have a Thursday crew,” Lesh said. “And they act, basically as another full time staff person when you look at the numbers annually. Those once a week volunteers give us the amount of time that a full time staff person would, which is just amazing.”
Readmond Township residents Mary and John Merrill are not only land stewards, but regular volunteers who are dedicated to land conservation.
John serves on Little Traverse Conservancy’s board and Mary helps gather data on the number of people visiting the trails each year, in addition to helping with trail maintenance and anything else the organization may need.
In 2013, the Merrills worked with the conservancy to get a conservation easement for their 40-acre property, which means all future owners of the property will have to comply with the rules protecting the land from development.
The Merrills moved to Northern Michigan five years ago from Columbus, Ohio to retire and live on the property they have owned for three decades.
“This is what drove us to move here, is the property and the availability of access to beautiful properties and lands,” Mary said.
Scot and Jilanne Egelston both work closely with nature and spend their free time volunteering with the Little Traverse Conservancy as land stewards. Scot works in environmental consulting and his wife Jilanne works as the park supervisor for the Petoskey State Park.
While both Scot and Jilanne work full time, Scot said it doesn’t affect their ability to volunteer with the Little Traverse Conservancy since they would be going out on weekends to hike and fish anyway.
“That was something that we thought would be a good idea, to show our appreciation,” Scot said. “We enjoy the preserves and we're going out there picking up trash anyhow so might as well let them know we’re doing it.”
More information about the Little Traverse Conservancy can be found at landtrust.org.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Community members volunteer time for land conservation
