What started with 16 of the most ominous land-based (and some aquatic wildcard) invasive species has been whittled down to one champion:

The emerald ash borer, also known as, The Green Menace.

Michigan has five operating ethanol plants and two under construction.

But just what proportion of the state’s corn should be used to make ethanol?

Corn growers insist that criticism that biofuels will increase food prices is misplaced.

To submit an image to Great Lakes Echo Photo Friday, send your photo, a caption and your name to greatlakesecho@gmail.com.

Michigan’s travel agency is pushing the state’s natural resources in a bid for tourists.

Efforts are also underway to promote agri-tourism, including the use of mobile phone applications that direct tourists to markets.

By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason
Editor’s note: Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror is an ongoing Great Lakes Echo series.
Four weeks ago 16 of the most troublesome terrestrial invasive species in the Great Lakes region took to the ring to find out which one readers thought was the worst.
Plants entered land brawls facing mammals; birds took the sky to ward off insects.
But now it’s time to make the final decision.
The emerald ash borer drilled through the mute swan and feral swine to make it to the finals.
In the other …

Proposed legislation could keep wind turbines out of the Great Lakes, and that’s good – or bad – depending on perspective.

Milwaukee built some of the region’s first sewers more than 130 years ago to carry untreated wastewater into rivers and the lake. Today the city is a national leader in reducing stormwater runoff.

By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason
Editor’s note: Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror is an on going Great Lakes Echo series.
Last week The Green Menace and The Beast faced off in the first match of the Terrestrial Terror Final Four.
So will it be the boar or the borer?
In the polls, 75 percent of readers chose swine over the green-plated insect. In the brackets, 37 percent chose the insect over the swine. The swine pulled in 28 percent of the votes while the rest of the bracketeers chose already fallen competitors.
It …

By Alice Rossignol and Rachael Gleason
Editor’s note: Great Lakes SmackDown! Terrestrial Terror is an on going Great Lakes Echo series.
Shakespeare’s darling and The Bark Butcher went at it last week in the Terrestrial Terror Final Four.
One hundred percent of pollsters voted for the European starling. Nineteen percent of bracketeers voted for the songbird and 5 percent voted for the beech scale. The remaining votes went to species that have already dropped from the competition.
But it’s time for the starling to fly the coop because the Echo referees went with …

Of Michigan’s 19 million acres of forest land, 8.4 million have private, non-industrial owners. Those owners mostly want the land for recreation or aesthetics, but few actively manage their forests for those uses.