Great Lakes Now Ohio

Toledo’s community art highlights importance of native plants for safe drinking water

6 min read

Toledo’s community art highlights importance of native plants for safe drinking water

This article was republished here with permission from Great Lakes Echo.

By Clara Lincolnhol, Great Lakes Echo

Toledo, Ohio, has a rich Rust Belt history that influences its present-day culture. Local environmental groups and agencies are turning to public art to teach residents that the area’s natural history is just as important.

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Great Lakes Now Michigan

Great Lakes Moment: Connecting people to nature through The Great Lakes Way

6 min read

Great Lakes Moment: Connecting people to nature through The Great Lakes Way

A recent Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan report documents substantial progress in creating The Great Lakes Way — an interconnected set of greenways and water trails stretching from Port Huron, Michigan on southern Lake Huron to Toledo, Ohio on western Lake Erie.

In 2000, the Community Foundation polled metropolitan Detroit communities about obstacles to building greenways.

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Food Great Lakes Now

Winter Wellness Pantry: Elderberry Elixir

5 min read

Winter Wellness Pantry: Elderberry Elixir

Part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices” and check out Part 1 of “Winter Wellness Pantry” for tips and tricks to stay healthy this winter with wild herbs of the Great Lakes. 

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Great Lakes Now

Winter Wellness Pantry

8 min read

Winter Wellness Pantry

This story is a part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices.”

As winter sets in, it’s the perfect time to reflect on your year of foraging, plan for the coming seasons, and ensure your pantry is stocked and your health fortified.

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Food Great Lakes Now Michigan

Smashing pumpkins in Traverse City to reduce trash

3 min read

Smashing pumpkins in Traverse City to reduce trash

By Izzy Ross, Interlochen Public Radio

This coverage is made possible through a partnership with IPR and Grist, a nonprofit independent media organization dedicated to telling stories of climate solutions and a just future.

Nine-year-old Gunner Vistisen was wearing goggles, a wooden mallet in hand, standing near a blue tarp lined with pumpkins on a lot in Traverse City.

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Food Great Lakes Now Michigan

A Foraged Great Lakes Woodland Chai Tea

7 min read

A Foraged Great Lakes Woodland Chai Tea

This story is a part of “A Year in the Wild Kitchen of the Great Lakes,” a series in partnership with expert forager Lisa M. Rose, with the mission of nurturing a deeper connection with the natural world through foraging. To get started with your foraging journey, begin here with our “Framework to Sustainable and Safe Practices.”

As the season shifts and the air chills, I find myself drawn to the warmth and sustenance that the wild foods of fall offer — from roots to mushrooms to nuts to herbs — and take great satisfaction in concocting nourishing recipes for my family and friends.

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Great Lakes Now

Environmental groups and industry at odds over plan to conserve old-growth forests | Great Lakes Now

1 min read

Environmental groups and industry at odds over plan to conserve old-growth forests

By Danielle Kaeding, Wisconsin Public Radio

This article was republished here with permission from Wisconsin Public Radio.

Some Wisconsin groups are urging the Biden administration to do more to protect mature and old-growth forests under its proposal to conserve those trees as logging interests are pushing back against changes.

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Food Great Lakes Now

Nibi Chronicles: The Gift of Manoomin | Great Lakes Now

10 min read

Nibi Chronicles: The Gift of Manoomin

“Nibi Chronicles,” a monthly Great Lakes Now feature, is written by Staci Lola Drouillard. A Grand Portage Ojibwe direct descendant, she lives in Grand Marais on Minnesota’s North Shore of Lake Superior. Her nonfiction books “Walking the Old Road: A People’s History of Chippewa City and the Grand Marais Anishinaabe” and “Seven Aunts” were published 2019 and 2022, and the children’s story “A Family Tree” in 2024.

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