Community Profile

Program Year

Initial Certification

Status

Active | Certified

Last Certification Date

6/26/2026

Certified Since

12/7/2023

Habitat Locations

By County - Lake

Registered On

10/18/2022

Links and Uploads

View Links and Uploads

Northwest Indiana Region Resilience

Valparaiso, IN

County

Population: 806745

Summary

Four counties in Northwest Indiana – Lake, Porter, LaPorte, Starke -- worked together to become the National Wildlife Federation's first ever multi-county "community" certified habitat in 2023. We remain engaged, encouraging neighboring regions as well as municipalities within our region to consider certifying too. This project is being led by NWI Region Resilience, a network of citizens that in 2020 led Indiana's first ever regional greenhouse gas inventory effort. This project is a follow on that explores nature based climate solutions in alignment with climate adaptation and mitigation strategies identified through the regional climate action plan framework developed in 2022-23 in conjunction with the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning Commission, Earth Charter Indiana and Indiana University's Environmental Resilience Institute / McKinney Climate Fellow Program.