Get Paid to Protect Your Wetlands!

Marquette County, MI: Marquette County landowners with wetlands on their property, listen up! Citizens for a Safe & Clean Lake Superior (“Citizens”) is launching a pilot Wetland Protection Cash Incentive program to offer $750 cash incentives to four (4) Marquette County landowners willing to enter into a Conservation Easement to protect wetlands on their property. 

To be eligible for the program, the property must be wholly located in Marquette County and contain wetlands of any size. This initiative is part of Citizens’ ongoing campaign to educate the public about the importance of wetlands and protect more wetlands in Marquette County.

Including swamps, bogs, marshes, and more, wetlands are incredibly important to our watersheds. They filter and clean water before it reenters aquifers, absorb excess water to mitigate flooding events, buffer shorelines to prevent erosion, sequester more carbon than forests, and provide critical habitat and hydration for migratory birds and other species. 

“If our ecosystems are to remain resilient in the face of climate change and increased development pressure, maintaining natural wetlands is absolutely imperative,” said Jane Fitkin, Director of Citizens. “By offsetting landowners’ costs to enter into conservation easements, we will put permanent, tangible protections for wetland acreage in Marquette County, in addition to our work pushing for local policy protections.”

The Wetland Protection Cash Incentive program will work in tandem with other advocacy initiatives. Due to development pressures and lack of strong regulations, Marquette County has lost over 50,000 acres of wetlands, taking with them the benefits they provide. To combat this loss, along with the incentive program, Citizens is also organizing to achieve local protections in Powell, Marquette, and Chocolay townships, which have seen the most wetland destruction. 

Interested landowners should visit citizensforsuperior.org/WPCI to learn more and fill out an interest form. Applications will be reviewed on a rolling basis beginning March 1, 2025 until funding runs out.

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Contact: Jane Fitkin, (989) 860-2767, jane@citizensforsuperior.org