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Nature Conservancy: Economy may complicate Owasippe preservation effort Nature Conservancy: Economy may complicate Owasippe preservation effort Originally appeared on "mlive.com" By Lynn Moore February 07, 2010 BLUE LAKE TOWNSHIP — Efforts to find conservation-minded buyers for the Owasippe Scout Reservation will be complicated by the dismal economy, according to the state leader of the Nature Conservancy. The Chicago Council of Boy Scouts of America, owner of the 4,800-acre reservation in Blue Lake Township, has turned to the Nature Conservancy for help in selling more than 75 percent of the reservation to groups that would conserve it. Helen Taylor, state director of the Nature Conservancy, said her group is happy to help, but could encounter difficulty finding buyers with sufficient resources to purchase the land. “This is a really tough economy for securing funds for projects like this,” Taylor said. The Boy Scouts council is looking for ways to keep its camping operations sustainable in the wake of declining use, funding shortfalls and deteriorating facilities. It recently announced a plan to keep about a quarter of the property for camping and using proceeds from the sale of the rest of the land to improve and consolidate its camp facilities. The idea of selling the land isn’t anything new. The council, under former leadership, had entered a $19 million purchase agreement with a Holland-area business executive that was contingent on the property being rezoned for residential use. The property wasn’t rezoned — and is now the focus of an appeals court case — and that purchase agreement was dissolved. Now the Boy Scouts say commercial and residential development is “off the table.” Taylor said she’s pleased with the new direction the Boy Scouts are taking. “We’re really happy the Scouts are thinking along these lines because not too long ago, it had another future,” Taylor said of the Owasippe property. The Nature Conservancy has been involved with the property for some time. It, with help from the Land Conservancy of West Michigan, conducted a “bioblitz” in 2002 that inventoried the reservation’s plants and animals. The study found 373 animal and 718 plant species, including 19 considered threatened or endangered such as the bald eagle, Karner Blue butterfly and eastern Massasauga rattlesnake. Taylor said the Nature Conservancy’s commitment to that bioblitz was an indication of the group’s “appreciation of the ecological importance of that property.” She said the size of the parcel is unmatched in the Lower Peninsula, which also complicates efforts to find enough funding to conserve it. “This is a big parcel,” Taylor said. “That’s what makes it so significant, because you don’t find properties that are intact and are in such pristine condition in southern Michigan.” She said several partners will be needed to conserve the property. Public funding likely will be needed, which is especially hard to come by in this economy, Taylor said, citing the U.S. Forest Service as a potential partner. The Land Conservancy of West Michigan, which recently purchased 171 acres in Saugatuck in a deal the Nature Conservancy helped broker and is involved in attempts to expand Muskegon County’s Meinert Park, also is interested, said Executive Director Peter Homeyer. For now, Taylor said, the Nature Conservancy is willing to enter a memorandum of understanding with the Scouts that would explore such issues as “How could we do this? What are the options? And, if we want to do this, what would it take?” Chicago Boy Scouts Executive Chuck Dobbins said earlier he hopes property sales can be completed in six to nine months, though no changes would be made until after Owasippe’s 100th camping season in 2011.
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