Private, voluntary action is key

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We have a small window of opportunity to help landowners protect these lands for posterity.

Some critical lands remain unscarred because families own and care for them. But while many landowners are willing to do anything they can to preserve the woods, they just don't know where to start. And the pressures on them to sell the land to the highest bidder are increasing.

Private owners who are good stewards of the land are absolutely vital to the "big picture" of protecting the land, the wildlife, and the beauty of this region. Especially here, where 92% of the woodlands are privately owned, helping private landowners protect woodlands is really the name of the game.

Hope for the blufflands lies in private, voluntary action.

And the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation sparks that action.

The Foundation has worked hard for a decade to build relationships with hundreds of landowners - offering support for good stewardship and long-term protection.

Some landowners establish private conservation agreements with the Foundation to protect the woodland, bluff and prairie habitats. It's called a conservation easement, and it simply means that they're chosen to prevent certain types of development on their land even beyond their lifetime - and the Foundation can ensure that.

Some landowners choose to sell the land - but to a conservation agency rather than risk its future to the highest bidder. The Foundation can bring the landowner, the right agency, private funding and public grants together to make that happen.

One way or another, the Foundation has protected nearly 3,000 acres here in just five years!

Hundreds of landowners have come to know the Foundation staff personally. Dozens of them are considering long-term protection of their natural lands in the bluffs. Several will likely begin those protection arrangements soon.

The Foundation is poised to protect at least 1,000 acres of important wildlife habitat in the Mississippi Blufflands in the next two years.


Mississippi River Blufflands protection

What makes the Blufflands special     

How gifts to the Blufflands are used     

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