We All Live on the Water Campaign
With collaborative partners throughout the Lake Michigan basin, LNRP is utilizing both a Costal Management Grant and a DNR River Planning grant, to coordinate the We All Live on the Water sign campaign and seminar series.
Signs bearing that slogan, and displaying the DNR tip line have been placed throughout the basin, reinforcing the sense of community and a shared responsibility for water quality. This Wisconsin Coastal Management collaboration involves basin groups along the Lake Michigan shoreline including the Sheboygan River Basin Partnership, the Milwaukee River Basin Partnership, and the Root-Pike Watershed Improvement Network.
Individual and organizational sponsorship of signs receive full benefits of LNRP membership.
The We All Live on the Water seminar series brings timely discussion of water-related issues to residents of the basin, featuring speakers of acknowledged expertise and encouraging a public dialogue to elicit and enlighten all points of view. LNRP also recognizes that the seminars further cultivate our partnerships with local groups and other organizations.
The first year of seminars and the launch of our quarterly newsletter were funded by a DNR River Planning Grant. Seminars were developed in collaboration with local partner organizations that have created steering committees. These steering committees have continued to work together on a variety of projects including conferences, calendars, other seminars, and food fairs. Check our quarterly newsletter for updates and upcoming events.
In the Fall of 2008, LNRP launched the Champion of Conservation Environmental Award Program. The award banquet will also showcase nationally recognized speakers as a further development of the We All Live on the Water campaign.
On
Thursday, December 4th, 2008, LNRP welcomed Peter Annin to the Wisconsin Maritime
Museum in Manitowoc, Wisconsin. Peter is author of the timely "Great Lakes
Water Wars." His story of the long-standing tensions revolving around the
waters of the Great Lakes are a great complement to understanding the value
of the Great Lakes Compact. Peter works as Associate Director of the Institutes
for Journalism and Natural Resources, a nonpartisan national nonprofit that
organizes educational fellowships for mid-career environmental journalists.
Buddy
Huffaker joined LNRP as the Keynote Speaker at the Spring 2009 Champions of
Conservation Award Program on Thursday, June 4 at the Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary,
in Green Bay. As the Executive Director of the Aldo Leopold Foundation, Buddy
Huffaker serves as a leading voice for the power of combining the emerging
interests of the green building movement with the longer standing conservation
and environmental movements. Building upon his own academic background
in landscape architecture, Buddy was deeply involved in every aspect of the
design and construction of the Aldo Leopold Legacy Center, currently one of
the U.S. Green Building Council’s highest ranked LEED NC (Leadership
in Energy and Environmental Design, New Construction category) buildings in
the world. The Aldo Leopold Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by
the children of Aldo Leopold, keeps his legacy alive by promoting the "Land
Ethic" he so eloquently defined. The Foundation engages in ecological
restoration, environmental education, land preservation, and scientific research
on the 1,400 acre Leopold Memorial Reserve in central Wisconsin and surrounding
landscapes.
Our Fall 2009 Champions of Conservation Award Program brought Joel Brameier to the Wisconsin Maritime Museum in Manitowoc on Thursday, November 12. Joel serves as acting president and CEO of the Alliance for the Great Lakes. On staff since 2001, Joel oversees a staff of 20 professionals dedicated to protecting and restoring clean water, educating citizens and youth and building a sustainable future for the Great Lakes. He has led the development of laws and regulations to prevent invasive species in several Great Lakes states and recently published a report on the urgent need to permanently stop the influx of invaders like Asian carp. He received his master's degree from the University of Michigan's School of Natural Resources & Environment in 1998, and his bachelor's degree from Valparaiso University in 1996. Prior to joining the Alliance, Joel worked for the American Medical Association. He has lived in the Great Lakes watershed his entire life and now resides on the north side of Chicago.
We were pleased to present bestselling author and humorist Michael Perry as part of our Spring 2010 Champions of Conservation Program. The program was held at UWGB on May 20 and co-hosted by the Environmental Management and Business Institute and the Center for Food in Community and Culture . Best known for his memoirs Population 485, Truck: A Love Story, and Coop, his essays have appeared in Esquire, the New York Times Magazine, Backpacker, Outside and Orion. He tours regularly with his band the Long Beds and recently released his second album. Perry lives in rural Wisconsin with his wife and daughters and sometimes a few pigs. Known for the heartfelt and humorous manner in which he brings his books and writing to life in “live” settings, Perry's presentation reflected how landscape and sense of place have shaped his work. As that landscape included cheese, manure spreaders, and pitchforks, he squeezed in a few cow jokes.
Former Lt. Governor Barbara Lawton presented a lyrical and riveting point of view, building a bridge between “Water and the Arts: Inextricable, the Fulcrum for our Future” onWednesday, May 18, at UW-Green Bay as part of the 2011 Champions of Conservation Awards Program. She addressed the group through their historical, scientific, cultural, artistic and spiritual connections, citing the “essential need” for this relationship, “as fundamentally necessary in our world today.” Barbara recently completed two terms as Wisconsin’s lieutenant governor, earning Madison’s Capital Times designation as “Wisconsin’s Green Leader.” Her Green Economy Agenda empowered smart individual and institutional action related to energy independence and climate change as a strategy to strengthen the state’s competitive position in a global economy. Barbara currently chairs the Wisconsin Arts Board, bringing the intersection of the arts, water and the environment into the center of public policy considerations.