Making some noise for restoration
Starting this week, you will hear a bit more than the sounds of birdsong and a gentle breeze blowing through the tall grasses at The Highlands.
Heavy machinery will be at work making progress on two exciting projects: the demolition of the clubhouse and the installation of five new wetlands.
In a few weeks, the view at The Highlands will be very different. From the former footprint of the clubhouse you will soon be able to take in a complete panorama of the property’s phenomenal rolling vistas.
Soon, the clubhouse will be gone and in its place will be the perfect vantage point from which to view The Highlands.
Elsewhere on the property, with funding from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, excavators and bulldozers will be digging depressions and removing drain tiling to create five new wetlands. Over the next few months, those depressions will begin to fill with rainwater, and in time, they will turn into lively gathering places for wildlife, much like the now teeming wetland we created in 2017, behind the clubhouse.
In a matter of days, this site will host two new wetlands.
If you see or hear some heavy equipment rearranging the earth at The Highlands this week, please be patient—those are the sights and sounds of progress, and an exciting precursor to the return of nature in an urban setting.
Follow along on our blog and social media as we post progress updates on both of these projects. Join us later this fall for two workdays at The Highlands where volunteers can plant native plants around the new wetlands and seed the prairie-in-progress.
The Highlands is a collaborative project between the Land Conservancy of West Michigan and Blandford Nature Center.
Joe Engel
The history and memories of this iconic location will always be part of the greater Grand Rapids folklore, but the new chapter is every bit as exciting – a universally accessible and permanently protected urban landscape that connects the re-established habitat of the 19th century with the very real gifts of nature, today… Thank you, Blandford Nature Center, for partnering with the Land Conservancy of West Michigan to make this a reality!