Land & Water Summit

The goal of the Land Conservation & Clean Water Summit, held every other year, is to help communities and natural resource professionals better manage our land and water resources and maximize new funding and technical opportunities.

Minnesota’s landscape and its rich water resources are inextricably linked. More than ever, our efforts to protect land and our efforts to protect water should be considered one larger endeavor to leave a legacy for future generations. As Luna Leopold observed, “the health of our waters is the principle measure of how we live on the land.” And, according to recent data on the increase in impaired waters and natural habitat loss, we need to find better ways of living on the land—or developing our communities—that consider our natural lands and water bodies as both our heritage from the past and our infrastructure for tomorrow.

Thanks to new state funding, advances in water management techniques and state-wide conservation plans, Minnesota today has an unprecedented opportunity to advance important land conservation and clean water initiatives that will shape the state for years to come. To ensure that Minnesota maximizes this opportunity, as individuals we must be as well-informed and technically capable as possible and as a larger conservation community we must be vigilant in making the best investment decisions for the state.

Change Effort

Increase the pace and effectiveness of land conservation and clean water protection efforts in Minnesota through advances in both local government practices—including low impact development—and voluntary land conservation projects. Overall, the goal is to help local communities “green” their cities as well as provide those implementing land conservation with the tools and motivation to advance their plans and programs.

Strategy

The purpose of the Land Conservation and Clean Water Summit is to provide much-needed training and high-quality discussion regarding the future of Minnesota’s collective conservation efforts. Moreover, it is intended to highlight the emerging issues within land and water preservation to an audience of local government staff and officials, state agencies, non-profit organizations, land-use and engineering consultants and many others. The conference will combine larger inspirational keynote addresses with more hands-on training on implementing conservation and managing our waters more effectively. We intend to institutionalize the conference and make it an annual or semi-annual effort.

Conference Goals

The conference consists of two full days: one dedicated to clean water, the other to land conservation. The content is being developed by a planning committee for each day, with the clean water effort being led by the Minnehaha Creek Watershed District and the land conservation effort being led by the Minnesota Land Trust.