Saving wetlands, dunes and WI State parkland is lauded

It was a pleasure to see this report in The Sheboygan Press about a local group's battle to protect acreage within Kohler Andrae State Park and in an adjoining pristine nature preserve along Lake Michigan from golf course construction: 

'We’re still here. The golf course isn’t.’: Local group receives Sierra Club award for work to protect Sheboygan coastal ecosystem

Kohler Co. applied to remove the trees on more than half its property and fill about 4 acres of wetlands for its 250-acre proposed golf course. Deforestation, as well as the application of pesticides and fertilizer on the golf course, are likely to have further impacts on wetlands, groundwater and other water sources, according to testimony from DNR staff. 

I have been writing about this struggle since 2014. And given the climate crisis which is burning and flooding Planet Earth right before our very eyes - along with advances in scientific knowledge especially about the value of trees - it behooves governments to follow and encourage groups like Friends of the Black River Forest to make natural resource preservation a defining imperative.

In other words: tens of thousands of trees, wetlands, rare sand dunes, wildlife habitat and Native American artifacts should not be clearcut - 

- bulldozed, paved or otherwise 'developed.'

Regrettably, the proposed golf course is just one of several high-profile projects in Wisconsin that runs contrary to what we need right now: strengthened forests, cleaner air and protected waters which all living things on a sustainable planet cannot do without.

So props to Friends of the Black River Forest and to the Sierra Club for grassroots achievement on behalf of a healthier and greener Lake Michigan, State of Wisconsin and planet.