Star Prairie Land Preservation Trust

08/30/2026

BAYFIELD COUNTY - A 132-acre forest known as the Mabel Cora Maxwell Nature Study Area will remain undeveloped following Northland College’s closure in 2025. Landmark Conservancy purchased the property for $448,000, using funding from several conservation partners. The land was then transferred to Bayfield County for management, to join the adjacent White River Fishery Area. The property will remain open for public activities, including hiking, fishing, hunting, wildlife viewing, snowshoeing, and cross-country skiing, while protecting forest, wildlife habitat, and water quality.

08/27/2026

“If we pollute the air, water, and soil that keep us alive and well, and destroy the biodiversity that allows natural systems to function, no amount of money will save us.” —David Suzuki, award-winning scientist, environmentalist and broadcaster

08/26/2026

What would Dolly do?

“My hope for the environment, for all things living, and all things good, just nature in general, [is] that we should pay more attention to how we’re treating our mountains, how we’re treating our world, how we’re just treating everything,” Dolly Parton said in an interview with National Geographic on April 6, 2022.

Today, we lost a true American icon—a global country star, a philanthropist, and a genuinely good person. Today, Dolly Parton passed away at age 80 in her home in Nashville, Tennessee.

Today is a sad day.

Dolly spent most of her life helping other people, from getting kids to read books—"If I’m remembered 100 years from now, I hope it will be not for looks but for books"—to providing financial aid to wildfire and hurricane victims, and funding infectious disease research.

She did amazing conservation work too, particularly for bald eagles and other birds of prey in her beloved Great Smoky Mountains. The Eagle Mountain Sanctuary at Dollywood has helped educate millions of visitors about wildlife conservation, as well as release more than 400 bald eagles into the wild.

Since her early childhood, butterflies have also played a pivotal role in her life—"I always related to them because I felt like they meant well, they were harmless, and they were colorful—kinda like I think that I am." Dolly's businesses actively support monarch butterfly conservation by providing food and habitat.

She led by example.

She led with kindness, with optimism, with a smile, and with positivity. She offered hope and she offered help.

“I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life,” she wrote in her 2012 book “Dream More: Celebrate the Dreamer in You.” “I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. I re-read passages from my favorite books. I hold the little treasures that somebody special gave me. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world.”

Legend.

Read my latest article here: https://ourpubliclandsandwaters.substack.com/p/dolly-parton-butterflies-and-bald

08/25/2026

Save the date. Join us!

08/20/2026

08/18/2026

Four months after Congress reversed a ban on mining over about 350 square miles in the watershed of the northeastern Minnesota wilderness, Gov. Tim Walz has issued a state executive order to block copper-nickel mining in the area.

08/05/2026

Be a conservation voter. Primary August 11.

08/02/2026

A story about those crazy cranes.

07/27/2026

The SPLPT has benefited from the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program in the past. It’s very difficult to accept this long term program was allowed to die.

For nearly 40 years, the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program protected Wisconsin’s lakes and streams, created wildlife habitat, and provided recreational opportunities.

Democratic lawmakers say Republicans in the state legislature stripped Knowles-Nelson funding from the state budget, repeatedly used unconstitutional vetoes to stall specific projects, and failed to reach a reauthorization agreement before the program's funding expired June 30, 2026.

✏️: Salina Heller

07/26/2026

“Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place in the family of things.” —Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese"

The sound of geese calling, of the gentle whistle of the breeze running through tall grasses, or of the rain tapping across the water, may seem ordinary and mundane. But in truly listening to these sounds of nature, we might just hear something extraordinary — an invitation into the family, the community, that we are called to share with nature.