What's New

Stand on the sandstone bluff at Redwood Hill Preserve and look down. Below the oaks, out of sight, a web of roots is doing the hardest job on the hill. It grips the rock, holds the soil through spring thaw, and drinks the rain before it can wash downhill into Butterfield Lake. Without those roots, the view you came for would slowly slide away.

We think about roots a lot at the Indian River Lakes Conservancy because stewardship works the same way.

When IRLC began in 1998, five couples sat around a dining room table on Butterfield Lake and asked a simple question: Who will care for this place? Since then, the answer has grown to over 2,700 acres of protected forests, wetlands, and shoreline across preserves like Grand Lake Reserve, Baker Woods, Ferrone Woods, Red Lake, and Redwood Hill.

But protecting land is a beginning, not an ending. Once a preserve is saved, the real work starts.

Stewardship is trails. Grand Lake Reserve alone has about eight and a half miles of them. Every blowdown cleared and every blaze repainted is someone’s Saturday morning.

Stewardship is water. The Indian River and its 18 lakes feed the Oswegatchie and, ultimately, the St. Lawrence. Through the Water Quality Conference, the Love of the Lakes survey and partnerships with lake associations, IRLC helps neighbors understand and protect the water they swim, fish and paddle in.

Stewardship is wildlife. Blanding’s turtles, whip-poor-wills, common loons and rare dragonflies depend on habitat that stays wild. That is why Grand Lake Reserve now carries a forever-wild easement with Northeast Wilderness Trust.

Stewardship is the next generation. Through Project WHIRL, local students collect real lake data alongside environmental professionals. At the Elizabeth May Duvall Nature Grows Kids Camp and the Trailside Learning Center, children learn the woods by name.

None of this is flashy. Like roots, it is quiet, steady and easy to overlook. And like roots, it is what holds everything else up.

This Giving Tuesday, December 1, we’re inviting you to be Rooted In Purpose. A gift of any size helps tend the trails, test the water and teach the next stewards of the Indian River Lakes.

Put down roots with us on December 1st or donate now at indianriverlakes.org/donate.