In February, we held our third annual Land Trust Conference and our fourth annual Winter Reception with the Indiana Department of Natural Resources.
This event is a highlight of the year. It brings together our land trust members, conservation partners, elected officials, conference presenters, supporters, volunteers, and friends for a day of shared learning, stewardship, and celebration.
We were honored to welcome former Governor Mitch Daniels to speak at the evening reception. He recalled landmark achievements from his time in office, including the protection and restoration of Goose Pond, at the time the largest land protection project in state history, and the Healthy Rivers Initiative, which he noted amounted to “four Goose Ponds” in scale. He shared a moving memory from the Goose Pond celebration, where he met an older gentleman who had spent his life working toward restoring that wetland, a dream nearly realized and celebrated with a parade through the streets of Linton, only for the project to be derailed by the Korean War.
But his remarks highlighted not only the commitment of Indiana’s conservation community, but the urgency of this work and its power to bring people together.
“It’s just become more and more urgent in my mind for a couple of reasons. The big one is, this remains one of the distressingly few topics on which people can come together, on which people who may not agree about other things can find common purpose and cause. Those were scarce 12 to 13 years ago, and they are, we can all see, very, very rare right now. How many endeavors can you name in which people from right and left, R and D, C and L – pick your labels – federal and state, public and private, come together in the way that you routinely make happen? That is really priceless right now. Thank goodness for anything these days that brings together disparate people and gets people to set aside, at least for awhile, whatever has made them feel that their fellow citizens, their fellow Hoosiers, and their fellow Americans are not to their liking.”
He finished his remarks by expressing his thanks, saying, “how gratified I was to be invited to tell you how much those of us who benefit from your work value it.
You know, we’ve got a whole half a generation at least of young people who desperately need to connect with nature. This was an issue even 10 and 20 years ago, I was concerned that we needed to get young people to experience nature, the magic, and the things it does for the soul. Boy, if that was needed then, never more so than now. Because of your work, we have every potential here for young people in this state to enlarge their souls in the way that only, I think, encounters with God’s creation make possible.”
All of our reception speakers, Julie Borgmann of Red-tail Land Conservancy, Stacy Cachules of Central Indiana Land Trust, DNR Director Alan Morrison, Governor Daniels, and Ben Miller of Mud Creek Conservancy, summed it up well: The conservation work we do is about partnership, unity, and connection. We are grateful for your dedication and commitment to protecting our lands, waters, and communities. This special day demonstrated that our alliance is stronger than ever, thanks to you.