Created by the glaciers that gradually receded from North America’s Great Lakes region more than ten thousand years ago, inland lakes grace Michigan’s unique landscape like sparkling jewels. Thousands of inland lakes of all shapes, sizes, and depths play a distinctive role in making Michigan a beautiful place to live, work, and engage in water-borne recreational activities. In addition to enhancing the natural beauty of our freshwater-centric state, inland lakes contribute an extraordinarily valuable array of economic benefits to Michigan by:
- providing high quality recreational opportunities for millions of our fellow citizens and visitors to our magnificent state
- enabling lucrative inland lake dependent business opportunities for thousands of entrepreneurs
- supporting premium lakefront living lifestyles and enhanced riparian property values that benefit hundreds of local communities and public schools
- enhancing the aesthetic appeal and therefore the economic viability of near-by villages, towns, and urban areas
Moreover, by enabling popular water-borne recreational activities such as boating, fishing, and waterfowl hunting, our inland lakes play a vital role in helping to promote and sustain market driven economic expansion by stimulating the demand for new lakefront and/or near shore businesses as well by contributing to the prosperity and growth of nearby communities. Generating tens of billions of dollars in annual economic activity, our natural treasure of thousands of high-quality inland lakes are vital economic engines that will ultimately play an important role in helping to create and sustain the robust “blue” economy that will help ensure a productive and prosperous future for coming generations of Michigan’s citizens.