Earlier this week, the Nature Conservancy announced an inventory of critical aspects of the Keweenaw Heartlands to begin this month.

The inventory, stated a release from TNC, will help inform the future management, protection and use of resources on the land, and guide future recreational opportunities, sustainable forestry, and infrastructure needs.

Rich Bowman, director of policy with TNC, described the four focuses, or thrusts, of the inventory and its long-term objective as “ultimately, for the local community to own and manage the vast majority of these lands.”

“It’s an opportunity for (communities) to control their destiny,” Bowman said.

During a January interview, Keweenaw County Board Chairman Don Piche said the long-range plan is for the majority of the land to become county forest. Before that can happen, he added, they have to find the funding to pay for it, then they have to find the funding to keep it sustainable forever. Two concerns expressed by the county commissioners are the land remaining open for public use and that the lands remain on the county tax rolls.

“Frankly, our goals and Don’s goals are pretty closely aligned,” Bowman said on Friday. “I would say the one thing we would add on top of what Don said is that we want to make sure that these lands, and what is contained there, are well-cared for. So that really brings us to the update and where we are right now.”

Bowman said that while some people have asked if TNC conducted an inventory before purchasing the 36,000 acres, the answer is yes, but it was limited. The previous inventory was conducted to determine the value of the property and what TNC could afford to pay for it.

“What we’re doing now,” he said, “is a more in-depth inventory to figure out in the long run how it needs to be managed and taken care of.”

The inventory consists of four thrusts, Bowman explained.

≤ The first thrust is to inventory the biological communities and biological resources. The area is recognized by TNC as a global priority for both biodiversity and climate resiliency. This thrust will establish a strategy to protect the region.

“That’s the business of the Nature Conservancy,” he said.

≤ The second thrust will comprise the cultural and historical resources of the lands.

“This is land that is rich with culture and history,” Bowman said. “And so, we’re working with Don Lafreniere and his team at Michigan Tech to do that inventory.”

Lafreniere is the department chairman and Social Sciences director at the Geospatial Research Facility.

The earliest known metalworking in North America dates back 7,000 years (The Neolithic period or “New Stone Age”), according to the National Park Service, when Native peoples start mining copper on the Keweenaw Peninsula, adding that objects made of Keweenaw copper have been found in archeological sites across the continent.

≤ The third thrust is conducting the real analysis on the timber and carbon inventories, bowman said. This part of the inventory will enable TNC to develop a 20-year projection on the economic potential of the Keweenaw Heartlands acreage.

“In order for anybody to successfully own this, it does have to generate a bit of a revenue stream,” Bowman explained, “and carbon — and eventually, sustainable forestry are, we believe, the base revenue stream.”

≤ The fourth thrust of the inventory will focus on infrastructure, said Bowman. This thrust will study roads, trails, and similar infrastructure, from the standpoint that it costs money to maintain infrastructure, and not have it negatively impacting resources.

“So, we have to know what the current infrastructure is,” he said, “what the condition of that infrastructure is, whether or not it’s the right infrastructure, and what it’s going to cost to keep it in good shape so that everybody can use it.”