As a child Sunday night always featured the family watching Perry Mason. Mom and Dad would never miss it. For you youngsters, Perry was the brilliant attorney, who defended his innocent client, charged with murder, and exposed the real criminal. He was ably assisted by Della Street and Paul Drake, his loyal legal secretary and private eye. The climax of every episode was the courtroom scene during which Mason's mastery of facts and cross examination would solve the case, to the amazement of Hamilton Burger, the DA, who lost about 270 cases to Perry. The courtroom scenes always started with key witnesses being sworn in: "Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God?"
As we near the climatic legislative session on the Stewardship Program (STEW), I keep thinking about the whole truth and nothing but.
A restored habitat at Hillside Prairie Sanctuary in bloom. The 348 acre property in Dane County was purchased by Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance in December 2025 using, in part, funds from the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. (Photo by Brenna Marsicek/SoWBA)
Gathering Waters, SoWBA, numerous statewide and local conservation organizations, and thousands (yes, thousands) of citizens have lobbied legislators for four years to save this program. It's politically popular with the public across partisan lines and is wildly successful. We celebrate STEW’s big successes like SoWBA's purchase of the 300+ acre Hillside Prairie Sanctuary, but it helped fund all sorts of impactful projects around the state, which benefit communities and folks. The DNR just announced two nice examples. The first is an abandoned rail corridor between Hurley and Montreal in Iron County. The trail those two communities will build will boost tourism in an area that depends on that business. In Fontana, a village on Lake Geneva, a grant expands a park along that grand lake and helps protect a trout stream (I had no idea Lake Geneva had a trout stream tributary). That will help tourism too but it also makes a pretty developed lakescape more accessible to all the public.
Pale indian plantain blooming at SoWBA’s Erstad Prairie, another property protected using funds from STEW. (Photo by Dave Nemetz)
Gathering Waters has been brilliant and persistent in its lobbying and has led an unrelentingly optimistic and positive campaign. As I've commented before, all their communications have accentuated STEW’s real accomplishments and popularity. They and many folks have hosted legislators on tours of STEW sites. They've answered every question and explored reasonable alternatives.
Our friends on the front lines have not shared the whole and full truth of their efforts. Nor could they. When they are asking us to contact legislators and appeal to their better natures, they can't reveal who is being a jerk and unreasonable. They must hope they can eventually convince all or most of the legislators. But more of the truth is coming out. As Gathering Waters et al have noted in recent weeks, some Republican state senators are stubborn in their opposition. If STEW is to be saved, Republicans will have to agree to some version which receives bi-partisan support. To be plainer, they'll have to work with some Democrats.
That does not bode well. But we have to continue to hope and work. So, if you have any connection with any Republican legislator, especially in the Senate, please contact him or her ASAP and ask that they support an effective Stewardship program. You can find the contact information for your legislator here.
This fight, and sadly that what it's going to be, will probably not center in a good version of STEW versus no STEW. Rather, there'll be amendments to a bill that create a workable STEW and a competing version with sham STEW. The opponents will support the latter so they can claim they supported Stewardship.
French Creek Wildlife Area, Wisconsin State Natural Area #663, protected by the Wisconsin DNR. (Photo by Joshua Mayer)
Some specifics to beware of:
Local governments, non profit conservation organizations, AND THE DNR must have Stewardship dollars available for land purchases. That seems incredibly obvious but one of the poisonous amendments might be to deny DNR funds to buy lands. While local governments and land trusts can and will buy lots of great land, the DNR is the logical and often the only choice to buy some land with great conservation and recreational values. I have in mind four parcels of about 100 acres each on trout streams in southern Wisconsin that have been for sale in the last four or five years.* Two were on the market earlier this year. I asked the local land trusts if they would consider those two and they simply have too many other projects and higher priorities to pursue them. All were in designated fishery areas and the DNR was realistically the only STEW eligible buyer. And forget trout for a moment. On each property, habitat for many wildlife species would be drastically improved. Three of four were close to the burgeoning Dane County metropolitan area. They would have been open for birding, foraging, hunting, and hiking. And forget hunting and fishing, in some cases, DNR is the best and only buyer for State Natural Areas or to expand state parks and forests.
At some point in the near future, Stewardship will live or die. If the Legislature does right, we'll have a lot to celebrate and enjoy and many, many folks to thank, including a majority of the current legislators. If not, we'll be as close to the whole truth as we'll ever reach. We'll know who killed Stewardship and perhaps why. The need for Stewardship won't disappear. The next round of the fight will occur in the election of 2026. I sincerely hope Stewardship is not a key issue in that election. But we'd better be ready if it is.
Take care,
Topf Wells, Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance advocacy committee
* The DNR did not, to my knowledge, try to buy any of these in part because previous administrations discouraged purchases in southern Wisconsin. A reminder that even if Stewardship survives we have to be vigilant that it's administered fairly and effectively.
