HeadWaters Land Conservancy is a Michigan based 501c3 non-profit land trust comprised of a Staff, Board of Directors, Volunteers and Members like you who all share in the mission of protecting and preserving the remaining undisturbed natural resources of northeast Michigan. These natural resources include regionally important agricultural lands, undeveloped tracts of forests for both timber and wildlife habitat, scenic or aesthetically pleasing landscapes for both daily enjoyment and to encourage tourism, and perhaps the most important, the protection of our fresh water resources in our sensitive swamps, streams, and lakes.
Organizational Overview
A 501(c)(3) public charity, HeadWaters Land Conservancy has been working with landowners and local communities since 1994 to protect and enhance northeast Michigan's increasingly threatened lands and waters. You can view a copy of our bylaws here.
Our strategies include:
- Preservation: Directly protecting land through conservation easements, land acquisition and effective land management.
- Community Engagement: Helping to foster a culture of conservation, to support land conservation and funding, and to ensure that Michigan has highly-skilled and informed citizens.
To achieve our mission, we are partnering with individuals like you with these key goals in mind:
- Secure key habitats to preserve the biodiversity of our native plants and animals
- Protect sustainably-managed forests to support our forest-based economy and wildlife habitat
- Keep our water and air clean to ensure we all have enough clean drinking water and fresh air
- Save our productive farmlands so that every community can benefit from healthy, locally grown food
We protect land.
The largest natural lands left in all of Lower Michigan are right here in our back yard. Not to mention eleven of Michigan’s most important watersheds, including the Lake Huron Shoreline. When these precious lands are misused or overdeveloped we all suffer - those who are attracted to the region for its beauty and numerous outdoor activities, and those whose livelihoods stem from its abundant resources.
During the last century, the landscape of this region has dramatically begun to change, and at a faster rate than it has been conserved. HeadWaters Land Conservancy was established in response to such unprecedented growth. Since its inception in 1994, HeadWaters Land Conservancy has been serving people – those here today, who appreciate these lands and have the foresight to preserve such special places – and those of future generations, who will benefit from our endeavors. Today, thousands of acres have been permanently protected with the help of our dedicated supporters.
How do we protect land?
- We enter into conservation easement agreements with private landowners. The landowners retain ownership of the land while the type and amount of future development is permanently restricted.
- We accept donations of land that possess high quality habitat or significant open space value.
- We identify and selectively purchase from willing landowners those properties in northeast Michigan that possess exceptional scenic beauty and ecological significance.
- We manage the lands we own as nature preserves to maintain or enhance the natural systems and wildlife habitat.
- We seek private monetary donations, secure private and government grants, and forge cooperative partnerships with other conservation organizations and local units of government to accomplish our land protection mission.
HeadWaters Land Conservancy is able to preserve the most outstanding examples of our region in perpetuity by using a land protection tool called a Conservation Easement. A Conservation Easement, sometimes referred to as a conservation agreement, is a voluntary act by a land owner to impose permanent restrictions on their land for its preservation. Restrictions are personalized to the land and the owner. The right to enforce the restrictions is held by HeadWaters Land Conservancy. Each conservation easement is different, just as parcels of land and their special values are different.
Privacy Policy
HeadWaters Land Conservancy (HWLC) values the privacy of our members and all users of our services, including this website. HWLC collects information to help us better serve you and the nonprofit sector. It is our policy to collect and store only personal information that is knowingly provided to us. We do not share personally identifiable information, except when persons consent to HWLC sharing personally identifiable information for a specific purpose.
This Privacy Policy explains our practices regarding the collection of information from this website that can personally identify you and/or your organization, and the choices you can make about how your information is collected and used.
Personal Information Collected
HWLC collects and stores contact information from individuals as it is knowingly provided to us, including email addresses. We use this information to contact individuals via email and mail with additional resources that might be of interest, including upcoming events and trainings, new publications, or other resources. You may choose at any time not to provide personally identifiable information, although this may restrict our ability to provide requested services or information.
HWLC may use or share your personal information where it is necessary to complete a transaction or to do something that you have explicitly asked us to do. HWLC uses other third parties such as a credit card processing company to process fees, dues, and purchase payments for services and goods. These third parties are prohibited from using your personally identifiable information for promotional purposes.
The following are examples of personally identifiable information that you may volunteer to provide and examples of how we use such information.
- Email Addresses – HWLC collects email addresses from those that create online user accounts, register for events, or subscribe to emails. HWLC may use your email address to send you emails from HWLC, including marketing emails, member updates, or email newsletters. All such emails include an unsubscribe link that you may use to remove your email address from the list. HWLC does not distribute email addresses to third parties, with the exceptions outlined in the Organizational Information Collected section below.
- Mailing Addresses – HWLC collects mailing addresses of those that register for events or purchase items or services. HWLC may send via mail member newsletters, brochures or other promotional items.
- Workplace Information and/or Organization Affiliation – Those who create online HWLC user accounts, register for HWLC events, or subscribe to HWLC emails often provide information about where they work, their job title or areas of interest, and organization information such as membership on a board of directors or role as a volunteer. HWLC uses this information solely to facilitate information sharing between HWLC and the individual. Individual workplace information and individual organization affiliation information is not distributed by HWLC on this website or elsewhere, and is not shared with third parties without the consent of the individual, with the exceptions below in the section Organization Information Collected and Third Party Uses.
- Financial Data Security – HWLC does not disclose credit card account information provided by members and other users of our services. When members and other customers make an online payment to HWLC by credit card, all of the information in the transaction is submitted directly to a secure credit card processor.
Photographs
HWLC takes photographs and videos during public events and solicits photographs and videos from our members that are representative of their work, and occasionally distributes these photos and videos for distribution via this website, social media, and in print material such as our organizational newsletter. Photos and videos are taken by HWLC, or by persons authorized by HWLC to take photos and videos on HWLC’s behalf, in public settings during public events. We make every effort to obtain implied or specific consent from individuals for photos and videos taken at public events. HWLC also takes photos and videos at non-public events and in these settings makes every effort to obtain appropriate distribution and usage permissions from those photographed or videotaped.
