DES MOINES, Iowa, December 18, 2007 (ENS) – The Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation says it has embarked upon “the largest single private campaign” ever launched in the state for natural land protection.

The goal of the new effort is to protect 15,000 acres of what’s left of “wild Iowa,” the foundation says.

At least 7,500 acres in the Bluffs country is on the foundation’s preservation wish list, including the Mississippi River blufflands and the Upper Iowa River.

Cliffs on the Upper Iowa River
(Photo courtesy Iowa DNR)

The topography of the Upper Mississippi in northeastern Iowa is rugged with limestone and sandstone bluffs, deeply carved valleys, numerous caves, sinkholes, and springs that supply productive trout streams. Many streams in this karst region disappear into sinkholes, flow through caves and reappear as springs.

The foundation wants to safeguard about 6,000 acres in the Loess Hills of western Iowa as well as Iowa’s northern lakes. Iowa’s largest natural lakes stretch along1,500 acres of natural shorelines and wildlife areas, including the Iowa Great Lakes and Clear Lake.

It will cost at least $40 million to accomplish those protection goals, says the foundation.

The project got some recent which has just been awarded a $3 million grant for its ongoing work from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, which works to protect wildlife areas around the United States.

This campaign accomplishes part of the Upper Midwest Wildlife Habitat Protection Initiative, the group says, and it is intended as a supplement, not a replacement, for the on-going work of the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation across Iowa.

Anita O’Gara, the foundation’s vice president and director of development, says the Duke grant requires a dollar for dollar match of 5-to-1 but the natural heritage foundation wants to raise a 9-to-1 match in Iowa.

Partners include Ducks Unlimited, the Conservation Fund and five land trusts involved with the Bluffs Alliance.

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