McKnight Foundation Renews
Grant for Blufflands

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This article was written and posted on INHF's website in May 2003.

The McKnight Foundation of Minnesota recently renewed its support of the Blufflands Alliance with a two-year grant totaling $800,000 to help protect the Mississippi River bluffs.

The Blufflands Alliance is a private and public effort of organizations, individuals and landowners working to conserve and enhance the blufflands located along the upper Mississippi River.

The McKnight Foundation has provided funding to the Blufflands Alliance partners for the past ten years as part of the partners' four-state blufflands protection program. The funding given to the Blufflands Alliance is shared among the six land trust partners. The McKnight's support has enabled the land-trust partners to protect over 14,800 acres throughout the four states.

Six non-profit conservation organizations---from Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and Wisconsin---focus and facilitate land conservation programs emphasizing volunteer stewardship with landowners. The partners are West Wisconsin Land Trust, Minnesota Land Trust, Mississippi Valley Conservancy, Jo Davies Conservation Foundation, Natural Land Institute and the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation (INHF).

The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation (INHF) also serves as the Bluffland Alliance's grant administrator. With the McKnight Foundation grant, INHF has protected over 3300 acres in the Iowa portion of the Mississippi River blufflands. Projects include the 1045-acre Heritage Addition to the Effigy Mounds National Monument, Paint Rock and several private conservation easements. As part of the conservation and education efforts, INHF recently published a 52-page, full-color booklet on neotropical migrant birds that depend on blufflands area habitat for survival.

"While the land protection and landowner education programs are similar, each land trust partner of the BA carries them out in their own way," said Darrel Mills, Blufflands Conservation Coordinator for INHF. "We all learn from each other in the process."

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."

With the renewal of the Foundation's grant, "We'll continue to work with landowners and public agencies, focusing on the need to protect the bluffs," said Lisa Hein, Program/Planning Director for INHF. Development pressures and habitat fragmentation are some of the concerns the Alliance will emphasize.

The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation is a nonprofit, member-supported organization that protects Iowa's land, water, and wildlife 'for those who follow.' Since its inception in 1979, INHF has protected nearly 75,000 acres of Iowa's lands and waterways.

For more information about this story or other Foundation news, e-mail Cathy Engstrom, Communications Coordinator, or call (515) 288-1846.

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