Citizens Ask Governor to Take
First Step through Executive Order
Commerce Township, MI – As Memorial Day approaches and the Michigan
Legislature moves forward with bills that could devastate state lands for
generations to come, Environment Michigan is launching its Million Acres
Project at sites across the state including the Proud Lake Recreational Area, site
of a controversial sell-off proposal by the Department of Natural Resources. The event was held to raise awareness of the
threats to Michigan’s state parks and forests, and to build support for the
group’s ambitious solution: permanently protect the one million most
irreplaceable public acres in Michigan from sprawl, logging, mining, and drilling. As a first step, Environment Michigan is
asking Governor Granholm to issue an executive order requiring the Department
of Natural Resources to designate ten percent of Michigan’s public lands as protected natural areas.
To build support for the
Million Acres Project, Environment Michigan will be talking with over 50,000 Michigan residents this summer and gathering over 10,000
postcards to the Governor. “With so many amazing state parks and forests
throughout the state, most Michiganders take for granted that they can just
jump in the car and head up north for a long weekend in the great outdoors,” said
Environment Michigan Citizen Outreach Director Daniel Leland. “But increasingly, vacationers
run the risk of finding their favorite remote places surrounded by treeless
subdivisions, flattened by clear-cut logging, or ravaged by mining and drilling
operations. Yet support for protecting
our public lands could not be stronger.”
The Million Acres Project was
conceived in response to an alarming increase in threats to Michigan’s most
valuable public lands, including a proposal by former Department of
Environmental Quality director Russell Harding to sell off Michigan’s state
parks, a pending application to open a hazardous sulfide mine in an
ecologically sensitive area near Marquette, and a bill that would require
increased logging in Michigan’s state forests.
A version of this “log every acre” bill, which Environment Michigan is
calling on Governor Granholm to veto, passed the Senate on Tuesday.
The first goal of the Million
Acres Project is to revitalize the visionary Wilderness and Natural Areas Act,
signed into law in 1972 by then-governor William Milliken that offers
legislative protection for up to ten percent of Michigan’s most valuable public lands. This law has not been used since the late
1980s, despite the fact that less than two percent of the available lands have
been protected so far. “We encourage
people who plan to visit our state parks and forests this Memorial Day weekend
to call on Governor Granholm to preserve these shrinking treasures for future
generations,” said Leland. “Once these
special places are gone, they’re gone forever.”
