MARQUETTE — The Upper Peninsula Environmental Coalition is celebrating its 50th anniversary this weekend, with events at Kognisjon Bryggeri and Peter White Public Library.

At 5 p.m. Friday, the UPEC will be holding its 50th Anniversary Meeting at Kognisjon Bryggeri, followed by music by Michael Waite and Groove Candy. The celebration’s main event will be held from 10 a.m.-4 p.m. at Peter White Public Library, featuring a collection of panelists. As the oldest environmental organization in the Upper Peninsula, the UPEC has a lot to celebrate.

“There were a few different organizations in town that were concerned about the way that the city was expanding and rezoning things back in the 70’s,” said Evan Zimmerman, UPEC president. “In 1976, the north side of Marquette was pretty much all swamp, and the city was thinking about trying to develop that more.

“One of the things they were proposing was commercializing the shoreline from about Wetmore Landing to Little Presque Isle. They were talking about building businesses and hotels and everything up there; they were even talking about putting a nuclear power plant in at Little Presque Isle at the time, but people really loved that area for the natural beauty that it had.

“There was a lot of community opposition to those things, and so a lot of people wanted to propose to the city to protect those areas, and keep them natural and accessible to the public.”

One of those people was former UPEC President Jon Saari, professor emeritus of history at Northern Michigan University. On March 14, the UPEC kicked off its 50th anniversary celebrations by honoring Saari with the Sisu award for a lifetime of achievement.

“The groups that were working on that kind of came together and formed this coalition,” said Zimmerman, speaking about the UPEC. “They just continued to look at all the issues all over the U.P. It started to spread out and out.”

Now the UPEC is headquartered in Houghton, with hubs in Sault Ste. Marie and Marquette. Over the years they have found different causes to support, but their core mission has stayed the same.

“There’s a lot of concerns about the development of land, logging and mining and things like that,” said Zimmerman. “Basically our main focus right now is that we support different grant programs in community conservation and environmental education.

“The mission is really to engage with the government, with businesses, with everybody to make sound environmental decisions, to figure out how we can keep the wild places in the U.P.”

Through donations, the UPEC is able to offer grants to many U.P.-based environmental programs and organizations, such as the Yellow Dog Watershed Preserve and the Lake Superior Watershed Partnership. This year they are giving away over $50,000 in grants to different local organizations, the specifics of which will be announced on Friday.

“It’s our 50th anniversary, so we got more grant applications than we usually have,” said Zimmerman. “There were programs that were previously government-funded, that have lost their funding for the year. They’re trying to fill that gap, and so we’re finding ways to keep those programs going.”

During the main event Saturday, called Celebrate the U.P., several panelists will speak on a variety of conservation-related topics.

“This is another thing that started under Jon Saari’s time as president,” said Zimmerman. “They wanted to make a positive event about the environment, because a lot of environmental stuff is kind of negative; they wanted to talk about good things that were happening.

“So they made this event called Celebrate the U.P. — this will be the 17th year now that we’ve done it. We bring in all sorts of people to talk about cool things that are happening in the environment. We talk about programs that give people a little bit of joy and hope about things. We’re doing that again this year, and are working our 50th anniversary celebration into that.”

This year speakers include Zimmerman, who will be speaking about the history of the UPEC, P. David Allen, who will be speaking about his conservation work in Wisconsin’s Fox River, Steve Waller, who will be speaking about the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research’s Planetary Health Check Program, Abby Wallace, who will be speaking about renewable energy in Alger County and Joe Locricchio and Bella Foelsch, documentarians and creators of the film “1000 feet down.”

A schedule of events can be found on the UPEC Facebook page. The event is free to attend.

“I think the legacy of the organization is people taking pride in where they live,” said Zimmerman. “Part of what makes the UP so special to all of us is the fact that we’re right on the edge of wilderness … The legacy is trying to protect as much land as possible and keeping it wild, keeping it pristine.”

Annie Lippert can be reached at 906-228-2500, ext. 550. Her email address is alippert@miningjournal.net.