Somehow it seems fitting that as I pen this article, I sit on a fallen log aside a rushing, clear stream in the middle of the Porcupine Mountains backcountry along the shores of Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. This 47,000-acre wilderness state park was established in 1945 to protect the last large stand of uncut hardwood and hemlock forest remaining in the Midwest. Along the trails there remains today, historical evidence of early silver and copper mining ventures that brought fortune seekers to the area as early as the 1850s.

At first blush, it may seem incongruous that a piece focused on conservation appears in a magazine principally devoted to the redevelopment of brownfields. The issue is really one of semantics, or perhaps perception is a better word, since most of the time we “think” of brownfield redevelopment from the standpoint of bricks and mortar demolition and subsequent reconstruction. While vertical build-out often makes sense for well-worn dirt located in hot beds of urban growth or at sites with attractive nexus to key infrastructure, more economically challenged lands, especially those in more rural areas, often don’t measure up under the magnifying glass of traditional real estate economics. ...

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