Growing a Legacy: How Your Land Can Live On

Protect the land you love and leave a lasting legacy with Blue Heron Headwaters Conservancy. From donating land or establishing a conservation easement to including BHHC in your estate plans, your gift ensures the region’s natural beauty and wildlife thrive for generations. Learn how you can make a lasting impact today.

Seed Processing - Low Tech: Collecting and Cleaning Native Seeds

Each fall, Blue Heron Headwaters Conservancy collects native seeds from our protected properties and nearby natural areas. These seeds help us restore and strengthen local ecosystems, ensuring that native plants continue to thrive and support pollinators, wildlife, and healthy headwaters for generations to come. Why We Collect Native Seeds Collecting seeds from local native plants helps preserve the genetic diversity of our regional ecosystems. It’s also a sustainable and cos

What It Means to Be a Steward of the Land

Learn how stewardship connects people to nature. Discover ways to care for land, support ecosystems, and make a real impact on biodiversity, water, and habitat health.

A Walk in the Woods, Photo by John Meyland

The Land at a Crossroads

Our region’s forests, farmland, and wetlands face unprecedented pressure as land changes hands over the next 20 years. Blue Heron Headwaters Conservancy works to protect these vital lands, safeguarding clean water, wildlife habitat, and open spaces for future generations. Now is the time to act—before development permanently alters the natural places that sustain our communities.

Nature’s Winter Game Plan

As fall arrives, wildlife begins preparing for winter alongside us. From hibernating mammals and brumating reptiles to migrating insects and freezing frogs, each species has unique survival strategies. You can help by leaving leaves and logs, providing water, planting native winter blooms, and giving wildlife space—simple steps that make your yard a haven through the cold months.

Prairie Fens and the Fight to Protect a Vanishing Butterfly

Once widespread, the Poweshiek skipperling is now one of the rarest butterflies, with fewer than 70 left in the wild. Its survival depends on Michigan’s disappearing prairie fens. At our Butterfly Preserve in Davisburg, BHHC works with partners to protect this rare habitat and bring the Poweshiek back from the brink—safeguarding an entire ecosystem along the way.

Events

Hearts Grow in Wild Places

Each heart represents someone who chose to Give the Land Some Love. Through their support of the Land Acquisition Fund, important forests, wetlands, and open spaces can be protected when opportunities arise.

We are deeply grateful to the donors whose hearts are blooming here. This field is a simple but meaningful thank you to the community that stepped forward to protect the places that make this region special.

Because of you, more land can remain wild, healthy, and cared for. Your generosity will have a lasting impact on the landscape and the life it supports.

Thank you for giving the land some love.

Explore Legacy

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Legacy highlights the care, commitment, and conservation work that continue to protect our headwaters, forests, and wetlands. Within these pages, you’ll find stories that reflect a shared dedication to land protection, thoughtful stewardship, and long-term community impact.

From conservation easements and habitat restoration to the volunteers, donors, and partners who make this work possible, Legacy offers a closer look at how local actions help safeguard natural spaces for future generations. The issue is complemented by photography that captures the beauty and significance of the landscapes we are working to preserve together.

View the Magazine