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.
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 from newest to oldest:
- UW-Madison Lakeshore Nature Preserve Strategic Plan 2020-2030
- UW-Madison Indian Burial Sites Management Policy, May 2011
- Lakeshore Nature Preserve Master Plan, March 2006
- Lakeshore Nature Preserve Guiding Principles, 6/7/2005
- Report of the Biological Sub-Committee of the Campus Natural Areas Committee
- Chancellor Wiley’s Letter re: Boundary Between Biocore Prairie, Eagle Heights Community Garden and CALS Fields, 4/12/2002
- Report re: Boundary Between Biocore Prairie, Eagle Heights Community Garden and CALS Fields, 2/21/2002
- Chancellor’s Letter Creating and Charging Campus Natural Areas Committee, 9/5/2000
- Campus Natural Areas Trail System Use and Standards, 4/18/2000
- Campus Natural Areas Planning Task Force Report, 2/26/2000 (This collates several key documents from the late 1990s.)
- A Brief History of the Campus Natural Areas, 10/25/1999
- Considerations for the Aesthetic and Environmental Management
of the UW-Madison Lakeshore Path, 10/7/1998 - 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.”)
- Gregory D. Armstrong, Campus Land Responsibility Debate Chronology, 2/14/1990
- Report of the Campus Biological Areas Committee of the Graduate Biological Division, 1/14/1967
- Memorandum re Assignment of Responsibilities to Certain Committees and Departments Dealing with the Physical Plant of the University, 12/19/1962