Fall-Winter 2008
How many islands are there in the Great Lakes basin? If you guessed 31,407 you would be correct. Isn't that an amazing number?
In the late 1980s nearly 100 islands were transferred from the US Bureau of Land Management to the State of Michigan. At that time there was no assembled information nor did a state policy regarding Great Lakes islands exist. Officials disagreed about what to do with these islands. Some thought we should ignore or sell them because they were remote and isolated. Others thought we should build campgrounds with outhouses and boat access. Still others thought we should establish wildlife sanctuaries. Questions grew about the basis on which these decisions should be made. Years later, a barebones policy was drawn up for Michigan islands, the first one in the basin. But many more questions still remained to be answered.
Then in 1995, with a grant from the Michigan Coastal Management Program, thirty-five people gathered for a three-day workshop in Roscommon, Michigan. The workshop led to the first assemblage of information about the islands as a collection, including recognition of the global significance of their biological diversity. Around the same time, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Great Lakes Basin Ecosystem Team started a significant island effort.
In December 2003, the Great Lakes program office of the U.S. E.P.A. hosted a second forum in Chicago. This time over 100 people gathered and the group became know as the Collaborative for the Conservation of the Great Lakes Islands.
In 2004 the International Association for Great Lakes Research received a ranking paper and 14 other
scientific papers during a special island session, and island indicators were submitted to the 2006 State of the Lakes Ecosystem project.
On August 6, 2007 the Collaboration for the Conservation of the Great Lakes Islands submitted a final report to The Great Lakes Regional Program Office of the EPA regarding the biodiversity of the islands of the Great lakes and detailed threats to that biodiversity. But many questions regarding the systematic protection of Great Lakes islands still remain.
Our Association has begun a dialog with the Michigan Sea Grant program, a joint program of University of Michigan, Michigan State University, and Central Michigan University to explore the possibility of hosting a bi-national islands forum on Beaver Island the last week of August 2009. We all have a stake in the long-term economic sustainability of the islands of the Great Lakes and in seeing that an ongoing scientific bi-national dialog continues. As plans develop we will continue to keep you informed.
– Craig Schrotenboer
