We all know that it’s essential to take care of our planet every day. When Earth Month comes around, it’s an excellent time to focus on what we can do to help preserve our environment and clean up our natural areas. Metroparks is gearing up for another successful season spent making the parks a better, greener, cleaner place.
Metroparks sets out every year to work together with the community to improve the parks and celebrate everything that spending time in nature has to offer. Find out more about Metroparks’ initiatives for 2022 in this interview with Danielle Mauter, chief of marketing and communications, and Tyler Mitchell, chief of natural resources and regulatory compliance.
Why is conservation important?
By practicing conservation and taking care of our parks, we ensure they’ll be available and enjoyable for everyone for years to come. Conservation is in our DNA at Metroparks, as the organization was founded to preserve green spaces and create parks for all to use. Conservation is more than just picking up litter and keeping the parks clean. It includes things like invasive species and stormwater management. Metroparks works hard to develop effective programs to tackle these challenges.
Tell us more about invasive species management.
Our Natural Resources staff are focused on responsibly preserving wildlife and managing the ecosystems that sustain wildlife within our 13 parks. That includes paying special attention to invasive species management—the use of various controls that limit the spread of invasive species while protecting the wellbeing and habitats of the native species in our area. We prioritize this to preserve the biodiversity in the parks and ensure that the habitats remain intact.
Which conservation efforts are you most proud of?
Metroparks is proud that our parks are home to almost every type of ecological system that you can find in southeast Michigan. That means that within our 13 parks, you can experience a wide array of habitats. We work hard to ensure that it stays that way! We’ve installed hundreds of acres of grassland, provided pollinator habitats, restored Black Creek Marsh at Lake St. Clair, provided habitats for threatened and endangered species, and more. We protect and enhance some of the largest and most intact ecosystems in the region, preserving the habitats and the plant, animal, and insect species that rely on them.
Earth Day may only come around once a year, but it’s the perfect time to reflect on our outdoor areas and what they mean to us. You can take action to help protect these areas! Conservation is critical to keeping our parks healthy and enjoying them for years to come.
