McKnight Foundation again supports blufflands work

---

This article was written and posted on INHF's website in May, 2005.

The McKnight Foundation of Minnesota recently renewed its support of the Blufflands Alliance with a two-year grant totaling $880,000 to help protect the Mississippi River bluffs.

The grant will allow conservation groups, including the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation, to protect threatened lands in the area. The Upper Mississippi blufflands region stretches along 400 miles of the Mississippi between St. Paul, MN and Clinton, IA. It includes woodlands, steep limestone bluffs and other natural areas that provide vital bird habitat along a key international migration route.

The McKnight grant will fund conservation, restoration and education projects by the six partners of the Blufflands Alliance. Those partners are the West Wisconsin Land Trust, Minnesota Land Trust, Mississippi Valley Conservancy, Jo Davies Conservation Foundation, Natural Land Institute and INHF. Combined bluffland conservation efforts by the six organizations are estimated to total more than $10 million over the next two years.

This is the sixth consecutive grant that the McKnight Foundation has provided to the Blufflands Alliance. Over that past 10 years, the Alliance has utilized the grant funding to protect over 17,000 acres of Mississippi River bluffs in 23 counties throughout the region.

Blufflands Alliance partners will use McKnight funding to continue to safeguard and restore significant portions of wildlife habitat on both private and public lands. The grant will also support conferences, seminars and workshops to increase public awareness about the importance of bluffland conservation.

"Support from the McKnight Foundation has been a vital to our success in protecting the Mississippi River blufflands," said INHF Program and Planning Director Lisa Hein. "The restoration and education projects along the Upper Mississippi River this grant supports will help prevent further losses to already dwindling wildlife habitat in the region and develop the public and private support needed to protect critical areas."

Past Iowa projects funded by McKnight and other grants include public acquisition of the 1,045-acre Heritage Addition to Effigy Mounds National Monument, permanent protection through private conservation easements, and many bluffland education programs. INHF has protected almost 4,200 acres of land in Iowa with support of McKnight funding.

The McKnight Foundation is a private philanthropic organization founded in Minnesota in 1953 by William L. McKnight and his wife, Maude L. McKnight. It is one of the largest foundations in the country and serves to "improve the quality of life for present and future generations and to seek paths for a more humane and secure world."

For more information, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, director of communications, or call (515) 288-1846.