The SB-WLE Coastal Wetland Conservation Blueprint is a collaborative regional conservation strategy for protecting, enhancing, and restoring coastal wetlands from the thumb region of Lake Huron to the western basin of Lake Erie. The strategy was initiated in 2016 by the Upper Midwest and Great Lakes Landscape Conservation Cooperative (LCC) and was formerly known as the Saginaw Bay to Western Lake Erie Landscape Conservation Design (LCD). In 2022, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Region 3 Coastal Program reconvened the planning process to develop the LCD into this Blueprint.
The purpose of this Blueprint is to galvanize a coordinated effort to protect coastal wetlands in the region. It represents a voluntary, partnership-driven approach. It is neither prescriptive nor regulatory, but it suggests priority actions to protect, enhance, and restore coastal wetlands using the best available data.
Vision
A system of Great Lakes coastal wetlands supporting economic, social, and environmental needs in coastal communities in the Saginaw Bay to Western Lake Erie geography.
Goals
- Goal 1 (Species): A system of Great Lakes coastal wetlands containing a balanced assemblage of species and providing for the needs of specific priority species at desired population levels.
- Goal 2 (Processes): A system of Great Lakes coastal wetlands with diverse wetland type representation having hydrologic and other wetland processes within the natural range of variability.
- Goal 3 (Human Well-being): Identify and enhance, through conservation, the economic and social benefits Great Lakes coastal wetlands provide.