Healthy lands do not take care of themselves
Land Management
In the Driftless Area, managing land is not just about maintaining beauty. It’s about protecting our natural heritage. We work to maintain and restore diversity and resilience.
Without active care, prairies become overgrown, wetlands lose their vitality, and the stories held in these landscapes begin to fade.
Many of Wisconsin’s native habitats rely on natural disturbances, such as fire and grazing, to remain healthy and resilient. Historically, Indigenous communities used tools like fire to shape and sustain these lands, encouraging beneficial wildlife and plants to thrive.
Fire played an especially important role in southwestern Wisconsin, creating unique mosaics of habitats that our most iconic species, like badgers, butterflies, and oak trees, rely on. These landscapes are the antithesis of monocultural lawns and wood lots overgrown with just few species of invasive shrubs; they are living, breathing communities of diverse plants, animals and people working together.
As our climate changes and the onslaught of invasive species advances, landscapes managed for ecological resilience become even more essential.
Your support helps us restore habitats, train volunteers, and care for the land that sustains us all. With your help, Driftless Area Land Conservancy can continue to lead this vital work. The Driftless needs us now, and together, we can keep it thriving for generations to come.
Today, we understand the importance of disturbance and the need for humans to take a leading role in managing our native habitats.
When we manage land for biodiversity, we’re not only helping wildlife, we’re helping build climate-resilient landscapes that can support people, farms, and future generations where communities thrive. This work is urgent and ongoing. It requires time, expertise, and resources.
Getting Started Managing Your Land
Start Small
To transition all or parts of your yard from traditional lawn to wildlife habitat, check out “Convert Your Yard into a Pollinator Paradise,” a video and how-to guide created by our very own Conservation Director, Stephanie Judge!
Find a Contractor
*Note that inclusion on this list does not indicate endorsement by the DNR or DALC. Always talk with a prospective contractor about your vision and goals to find someone who will be a good fit for your project. We also recommend you get more than one quote for a given scope of work before making a decision about who to hire.
Join a DALC Event
Are you interested in seeing what an active restoration project looks like, and/or honing skills that you can use on your own land? Check out DALC’s year-round volunteer opportunities at our Nature Preserves!
From time to time, DALC also hosts workshops and events to help landowners learn more about restoring and managing their properties. You can check out our Calendar of Events to see what’s coming up next, and sign up for our monthly e-news to be the first to hear about upcoming opportunities.
Additional Resources
DALC maintains an extensive list of financial and technical resources to help landowners. Click the button below for information on restoring and managing prairies, oak savanna, woodlots, and pastures, protecting wildlife, invasive species management, and more!
Possibility
In early August, 2024 we welcomed a brand-new Nature Preserve: Dragon Woods! This beautiful oak woodland in New Glarus is a cooperative project of DALC and the BadgerLand Foundation, which jointly co-manage the nearby Wild Oaks Preserve. We are grateful to the...
It Takes a Village, to Care for Land
Sometimes it’s easy to imagine that the best parts of nature are far away, hidden on high mountaintops or secret valleys, only reachable after a trek and a scramble. But our favorite wild places are often right in our own backyards – and having nature so close to us...
Trusted Custodians
Judy and John Lovaas embarked on a mission to find land in the Driftless Area in 1988, driven by Judy’s deep-rooted passion for land preservation. This passion was ignited when the farmland adjacent to their home in McHenry, Illinois, was sold and earmarked for a...