Bruce is no stranger to conservation. An attorney based in Ann Arbor, he is a tireless advocate for northern Michigan. “The entire Upper Peninsula generally, and around Les Cheneaux Islands in particular, are extremely important to me,” Bruce said. Bruce describes his principal professional activity in the past year as “litigating on behalf of the Huron Mountain Club, the National Wildlife Federation, the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve, and the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in opposition to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality’s grant of a mining permit to conduct sulfide mining directly beneath the pristine Salmon Trout River, northwest of Marquette.”

A magnanimous spirit infuses Bruce’s perception of his own land. “Much as I have enjoyed that isolated sensation, my family and I never felt it was particularly fair to have it all to ourselves,” he explained. A few years ago, he worked with the Conservancy in the sale of land that has become an addition to the Birge Preserve, located just east of his property. Pleased with the staff and how the project unfolded, Bruce began discussing options for his remaining land with Land Protection Specialist Ty Ratliff. The result was the sale of development rights for 225 acres and the creation of the 25-acre Search Bay Nature Preserve.

“I believe deeply that many different approaches are required to protect our natural resources,” Bruce said. “Of all the possible approaches, however, I find that protection of land by ownership of that land or ownership of conservation easements held by organizations like Little Traverse Conservancy to be perhaps the best, most certain, and most reassuring form of environmental protection. Unfortunately, protective laws can be amended or revoked, regulations can be enforced disparately depending on the party in power at the time, and even successful litigation results can be undone by later litigation or other kinds of end run activities by dedicated polluters. Most kinds of environmental activism, when conducted in an adversarial context, necessarily ends in compromise, and every environmental compromise means another incremental loss, usually permanent in nature, for the environment. A land conservancy bucks this trend by establishing permanent protection, parcel by parcel, for valued natural resources. For me, this solution ranks at the top of the environmental protection food chain,” he said.

“Timing was a major factor in the success of this project,” Ratliff said. “Fundraising in this region is a challenge and we were counting on a fairly slim possibility of a federal grant to make it happen. Fortunately, Bruce was willing to hang in there with us until the grant funding eventually came through, and he was also willing to sell his development rights at a bargain sale.” The federal grant which largely funded the project came through the North American Wetland Conservation Act program.

Ratliff described the protected land as exceptional waterfowl habitat, a factor that greatly helped in securing the grant. He also noted that much of the land is surrounded by federal land. The nature preserve is surrounded on two sides by Hiawatha National Forest lands, adding 4,000 feet of undeveloped frontage to the west of more than 2½ miles of undeveloped frontage along Search Bay/Lake Huron.

The conservation easement parcel includes an additional 4,000 feet of lake frontage, is also surrounded on two sides by national forest lands, and abuts the Conservancy’s Birge preserve which includes 435 acres and 1.2 miles of Lake Huron shore.