A good field guide doesn’t tell you exactly what you’ll find. It prepares you for what you’ll encounter along the way.
For more than 20 years, Conservation Law Center has provided free, expert legal help to protect Indiana’s lands and waters and the communities that depend on them.
This is where we’ve been, where we’re headed, and how you can help carry this work forward.
The path may change, but our purpose remains clear.
Three destinations guide our way:
protected land, clean water, and thriving communities.
Protected Land
Where we’re headed: A connected landscape where conservation can endure.
Some places, once lost, cannot be brought back. Protecting them means acting while we still can. CLC provides the legal foundation that makes lasting conservation possible, helping land trusts and conservation organizations protect special places, build partnerships, and secure a future for Indiana’s wildlife habitat and working lands.
Point of Interest: Securing Busseron Creek’s Future
Nearly 4,000 acres of bottomland forest, marshland, and upland habitat faced an uncertain future until CLC helped bring together the strategy, resources, and partners needed to protect them.
Clean Water
Where we’re headed: Healthy lakes, rivers, and wetlands that sustain life and connect our communities.
Clean water is part of our everyday lives, from the water we drink to the waterways we fish, paddle, and explore. Protecting it means acting before damage is done. CLC defends strong safeguards, holds decision-makers accountable, and anticipates emerging threats to the waters our communities and wildlife depend on.
Point of Interest: Protecting Wetlands near the Kankakee
More than 700 acres of farmed wetlands near the Kankakee River were altered to make way for an industrial dairy. When the Army Corps failed to account for the wetlands and waters that existed before those changes, CLC challenged its decision and won.
Read the case file (coming soon)
Thriving Communities
Where we’re headed: Healthy neighborhoods where people have a voice in shaping the places they call home.
Conservation isn’t only about places. It’s about people. Environmental decisions shape the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the parks and public spaces where communities come together. CLC works alongside residents to help them understand their rights, take part in the decisions that affect them, and advocate for healthier places to live.
Point of Interest: Standing with East Chicago Residents
When a scrap-metal recycler proposed a facility next to the city’s baseball stadium and near a hospital and elementary school, CLC helped residents and local officials ask the right questions. The city council blocked the facility.
Read the case file (coming soon)
Field Notes: the video series
Short conversations from the people and places in the Field Guide. A new episode is released each week.
Playlist
We can't know exactly what lies beyond the bend.
But with experience behind us and committed partners beside us, we’ll be ready to defend clean water, protect special places, stand with communities, and prepare the advocates who will carry this work forward.
Conservation Law Center is an independent, donor-supported nonprofit. Gifts from people like you keep our legal help free for the land trusts, conservation groups, and communities who rely on it.
Your year-end gift helps us:
- Respond quickly when special places are at risk
- Hold decision-makers accountable for the laws that protect our water
- Stand with communities facing environmental harms
- Train the next generation of conservation attorneys
Other ways to give:
Mail a check. Make checks payable to Conservation Law Center and mail them to 116 South Indiana Avenue, Ste. 4, Bloomington, IN 47408. Checks postmarked by December 31 count toward 2026.
Give from your IRA. If you’re 70½ or older, you can give directly from your IRA through a qualified charitable distribution. It may count toward your required minimum distribution and isn’t taxed as income. Ask your IRA administrator to send the gift by December 31.
Recommend a grant from your donor-advised fund. Search for Conservation Law Center through your fund’s grant portal, or share our tax ID: 20-2321854.
Give stock or other securities. Gifts of appreciated stock can offer tax advantages. Contact us for transfer instructions.
Give monthly. A recurring gift provides steady support all year. Choose “monthly” on our donation page.
Leave a legacy gift. Including CLC in your will, or naming us as a beneficiary of a retirement account or life insurance policy, helps protect Indiana’s lands and waters for generations to come. Learn about legacy giving.
Questions? Contact Katie Beck at katbeck@iu.edu or 812.855.2350.
Where We've Been
Since 2005, Conservation Law Center has worked across Indiana and beyond, in courtrooms and classrooms, alongside land trusts, conservation organizations, and communities.
Along the way, we’ve learned that lasting conservation takes more than a single case or victory. It takes strong relationships, deep knowledge, creative thinking, and the persistence to stay with difficult problems.
Last year, 20 Stories for 20 Years looked back at some of the people, places, and defining moments that brought us here.
Now, we’re looking ahead.
