The State Budget is a Big Win for Conservation

by Steve Bablitch, Chair, Wisconsin Board of Trustees

For more than 17 years, the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Fund has been a highly successful public-private partnership, securing critical wildlife habitat, conserving the best of outdoor Wisconsin and providing consistent world class outdoor recreation opportunities. I am grateful that we can celebrate this program yet again with its reauthorization in the newly signed state budget.

As the Stewardship Fund’s title would imply, being named after two governors from different political parties, it took a bipartisan effort to reauthorize this vital conservation program for another 10 years. Governor Doyle led the way again by proposing the fund’s reauthorization in his budget back in January. After long negotiations over the past several months, the State Senate and Assembly agreed as well. In the budget signed on October 26, the Stewardship Fund was authorized to continue from 2010-2020 at a level of $86 million per year.

Since its inception in 1989, the Stewardship Fund has achieved incredible results, protecting more than 470,000 acres of Wisconsin’s greatest natural resources. Projects have ranged from 100-square-mile purchases such as the Wild Rivers Legacy Forest in northeast Wisconsin to 1-acre additions to the Hank Aaron State Trail in Milwaukee. The land protected has provided remarkable recreational opportunities for hikers, bikers, bird watchers, hunters and anglers.

The Stewardship Fund is not only good for conservationists; it’s a key component of our tourism and local timber economies.

Over the years the citizens of Wisconsin have shown overwhelming support for this program. In a recent bipartisan poll conducted by The Nature Conservancy, nearly 90% of Wisconsin voters agreed that even in tight fiscal times this program should be a priority. There is no question that the Stewardship Fund has accomplished great things in its first 17 years, yet with increases in population and demand for outdoor recreational opportunities, its work is far from complete.

State government has agreed with the people of Wisconsin, and together we celebrate reauthorization of one of our nation’s most successful conservation programs. A program that will result in new natural areas, state parks and bike trails that Wisconsinites will enjoy for generations to come.