Today, March 20th, Michiganders across the state are celebrating the start of spring. We, too, look forward to all that this season brings including wildflowers, bird migration, and more. But today, we are especially excited about World Rewilding Day—established in 2021, World Rewilding Day raises awareness of the need for large, ‘wild’ habitat in the fight against climate change-driven extinctions.
Our recently-released video “Keep the U.P. Wild” explores one such effort in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The Keep the U.P. Wild Coalition last year began a campaign to add federal Wilderness designation to more than 40,000 acres of land in the western U.P., and has since grown to include more than 300 organizations.
Designation requires congressional action, which would provide the highest level of federal land protection for the four areas within the one-million-acre Ottawa National Forest in the western Upper Peninsula: The Trap Hills, Ehlco Area, Norwich Plains, and Sturgeon River Gorge Wilderness Addition.
If successful, wilderness designation would protect these areas for biological diversity, not resource extraction, while still providing opportunities for their respectful use, enjoyment, and economic benefit.
“The scientific community has learned … that connections and scale really play an important role in the ability of many species to exist over time,” said MNA Conservation Director, Andrew Bacon. Wilderness designation at this scale would most certainly benefit the flora and fauna and provide for the natural processes that help reduce the effects of carbon in the atmosphere—one of the leading drivers of climate change.
Watch our video today, and learn more about this campaign and the coalition members at keeptheupwild.com.
Michigan Nature Association 