A once-manicured golf course in Geauga County, Ohio, has transformed into a thriving public park where visitors can stroll past native trees and shrubs, cold-water streams, revitalized wetlands, and quality habitat for wildlife. This blend of recreation and habitat is thanks to a series of restoration projects prioritizing natural spaces over putting greens and has breathed new life into the 180-acre park.

At Presque Isle State Park in Erie, Pennsylvania, a dune habitat restoration project will welcome native plants, shorebirds, and other wildlife to Pennsylvania’s only “seashore.”

In the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York, the Syracuse Urban Food Forest Project is creating a corridor of edible wild plants to serve as a nutritious new food source for local humans and wildlife.

Learn more about the conservation practices of Schoepp Farms LLC, a third-generation family farm in Wisconsin.

After nearly 40 years, the Rochester Embayment Area of Concern—a 35-square-mile portion of Lake Ontario near Rochester, New York—has shed its status as one of the most environmentally degraded places in the Great Lakes region. Learn more about this achievement happened in this success story.

Before closing out 2024, we want to take some time to celebrate some of the clean water wins this past year. The Healing Our Waters-Great Lakes Coalition is grateful for our partners across the eight-state Great Lakes region and these successes wouldn’t have been possible without their continual efforts; thank you, all!

To help combat tree inequity, nonprofit environmental advocacy organization Faith in Place was awarded $1.99 million by the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry Program to increase urban tree canopies in the Great Lakes region. Made possible by the Inflation Reduction Act, these funds will allow Faith in Place to facilitate tree planning and workforce development projects at faith institutions and 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations serving disadvantaged communities throughout Illinois, Indiana, and Wisconsin.

Deep in the heart of urban Chicago, a network of floating wetlands is restoring native wildlife habitats, increasing biodiversity, and encouraging recreation along the north branch of the Chicago River. Known as The Wild Mile, the interconnected islands were installed by grassroots environmental restoration organization Urban Rivers in 2017 and have since been dubbed the world’s first floating eco-park.