The Van Buren Conservation District is looking to plant 4,900 new trees around Southwest Michigan in the next couple of years, and it’s offering some property owners a chance to get in on the effort.
The district’s Erin Fuller tells us they’re teaming up with the Michigan Lakes and Streams Association for a grant project that will plant trees for free on properties surrounding six inland lakes in Van Buren and Cass counties.
“We want to increase the tree cover around some of our inland lakes in southwest Michigan because planting those trees obviously has a lot of benefits for wildlife, but it’s also really good for our water quality,” Fuller said.
Fuller says the tree planting project is focused on Round, Gravel, and Eagle lakes in Van Buren County, and Harwood, Birch, and Baldwin lakes in Cass County. Anyone with property along any of those lakes can apply to have some trees planted by a Conservation District contractor.
“We’ll just have landowners fill out an interest form and then we’ll work with them to figure out what kind of tree they want, where on their property they want it, and we’ll get all that figured out.”
Fuller says the six lakes were selected based on the populations around them and the need for more tree cover nearby.
A seminar explaining the project will be hosted by the Michigan Lakes and Streams Association on September 23 at the Porter Township Hall in Van Buren County from 5 to 8 p.m.
Fuller says the plan is to plant the trees this fall, and she’s already received about 60 applications from interested property owners. The application can be found here.
