Benchmark UW documents in the history of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve

Official university efforts to protect and set policy for the lands that are now within the boundaries of the Lakeshore Nature Preserve date back to the early 1960s, in response to public controversy over the decision to construct the Sewell Social Science Building in Muir Woods.

UW-Madison oversight of these lands has evolved through several different governance committee structures: first the Wooded Areas Committee, then the UW Arboretum, then the Campus Natural Areas Committee, and finally the current Lakeshore Nature Preserve Committee.

Over the course of this forty-year history, several key reports have been produced that are invaluable for anyone seeking to understand the history of the Preserve. We have gathered the most important of these below, all downloadable as PDF files. (You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read them.)

Please remember that these are the original historic reports, created in response to particular circumstances at particular moments in time. As a general rule, later documents supersede earlier ones in articulating university policy for the Lakeshore Nature Preserve.

Documents, chronological order

Memorandum re Assignment of Responsibilities to Certain Committees and Departments Dealing with the Physical Plant of the University, 12/19/1962    Download

Report of the Campus Biological Areas Committee of the Graduate Biological Division, 1/14/1967    Download

Gregory D. Armstrong, Campus Land Responsibility Debate Chronology, 2/14/1990    Download

Virginia Kline and Brian J. Bader, UW-Madison Campus Natural Areas Management Plan, 1996 [this benchmark document is generally referred to as the “Kline-Bader Report”].    Download 3mb file

Considerations for the Aesthetic and Environmental Management
of the UW-Madison Lakeshore Path, 10/7/1998    Download

A Brief History of the Campus Natural Areas, 10/25/1999    Download

Campus Natural Areas Planning Task Force Report, 2/26/2000
(this collates several key documents from the late 1990s)    Download

Campus Natural Areas Trail System Use and Standards, 4/18/2000    Download

Chancellor's Letter Creating and Charging Campus Natural Areas Committee, 9/5/2000    Download

Report re: Boundary Between Biocore Prairie, Eagle Heights
Community Garden, and CALS Fields, 2/21/2002    Download

Chancellor Wiley's Letter re: Boundary Between Biocore Prairie, Eagle
Heights Community Garden, and CALS Fields, 4/12/2002    Download

Report of the Biological Sub-Committee of the Campus Natural Areas Committee    Download

Lakeshore Nature Preserve Guiding Principles, 6/7/2005    Download

Lakeshore Nature Preserve Master Plan, March 2006    View

UW-Madison Indian Burial Sites Management Policy, May 2011   Download

 

 

Text credit: Bill Cronon. Version 1a, 11/12/06