National Parks for Sale: Michigan's Natural Assets at Risk

Land for sale: Sleeping Bear Dunes

Michigan residents have long worked to make sure that our natural resources are publicly accessible - not just to private individuals able to buy large swaths of land to do with what they will. Our National and State Parks are crucial to public access to our outdoors. Michigan's duneland is like nothing else on earth, Congress (and the Michigan Legislature wrt State Parks) should do everything possible to help protect it and that includes allowing the National Park Service to acquire and manage critical lands within Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Congressional funding would allow this to happen.

Many private landowners want to be able to keep land in conservation after they sell it, but have to weigh the pros and cons of getting the most for their property. Too often, this means selling to developers. Land Conservancies can help such landowners weigh their options. A handful of other states have enacted Conservation Tax Credit Programs that help make the decision to keep land in conservation more economically feasible for landowners. This option is being considered in Michigan and a federal conservation tax credit just expired. The federal credit, if extended (preferably permanently) could help with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore problem by providing conservation protection on private lands within the Lakeshore at a discounted rate - providing savings to the National Parks Service in their effort to acquire critical lands. Learn more about the federal tax incentive at www.lta.org and let your member of Congress know that you'd like to see this incentive extended. (2007 CTC Wall Street Journal.)

Protection of and access to unique natural amenities (i.e. Sleeping Bear Dunes) make Michigan a place people are drawn to. National, state, and local policies ought to reflect that reality.