Duluth Awarded Minnesota Land Trust ‘Partner of the Year’

DULUTH, Minn. – A special honor for Duluth today as the Minnesota Land Trust awarded the city their Partner of the Year for its effort in recognizing the potential of outdoor recreation and green space preservation.

This is part of the trust’s 2022 Treasured Places event, and the first time Duluth has received this award. Contributing factors include cleaning up the St. Louis Estuary, building new trails like the Duluth Traverse, and work on the Grand Avenue Nordic Center.

“We are excited to be here in the City of Duluth, but our work expands all over the state and I think when we look back in 100 years, we’re all going to be proud of the work that’s happened here because that’s what’s going to be our lasting legacy. Some of the places that we’ve already preserved like Minnesota Point wouldn’t have happened without great people making intentional decisions and that’s what we are hoping to spawn today,” Minnesota Land Trust CEO, Kris Larson said.

Other awards given out at the event included ‘Landowner of the Year’ and ‘Volunteer of the Year’.

“All of us can play a role in helping to use land as a vehicle to get us to our public goals. So those things like if you’re a landowner, either preserving your property or restoring it so we get more environmental benefits out of that and a place like city of Duluth, it’s just maintaining the wonderful systems that we have,” Larson said.

The Northridge Estates Association also received a ‘Special Recognition Award’.