Wildlife Habitat:

Darby Nelson: What Kinds of Conservation Work Will Happen Where?

Topic: Wildlife Habitat

Last week, the Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council made preliminary recommendations for over $56 million in habitat restoration and conservation funding from the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment. Darby Nelson, a member of the Council and president of the board of Conservation Minnesota, begins a series of posts describing activities that would be funded under the recommendations.

The Lessard-Sams Outdoor Heritage Council’s draft funding recommendations touch habitat types across all five of our ecological regions as I reported last week. This week I want to begin describing the kinds of activities planned for each of those regions starting with the Northern Forest section. This section includes the entire north-central and north-eastern parts of the state.

Northern Forest

First off, the LSOHC will make good on its obligation to complete easement purchase of the 187,000-acre UPM-Blandin lands in the Grand Rapids area. We allocated $18 million to this project in the first funding round and will now complete the purchase by making the final $18 million payment this round. Though expensive in aggregate, this project was highly cost-effective on a per acre basis. This acquisition will keep these lands open to the public forever.

A project in Crow Wing County expands the Nokassippi River Wildlife Management Area (WMA) for hunting and fishing. It also acquires hundreds of acres of easements to protect the viability of the WMA from development encroachment. The project also helps create a buffer zone around Camp Ripley.

The Minnesota Sharp Tail Grouse Society will use its grant to protect, enhance and restore both open and brushland habitat and additional forest habitat in St. Louis, Aitken and Kanabec counties for addition to the WMA system. A number of non-game species of greatest conservation need will also benefit from this work.

The Minnesota Land Trust plans to use its grant to implement a critical shoreline habitat protection program, concentrating its efforts in the Arrowhead region. Their original plan was to protect more than 50,000 feet of shoreline habitat by acquiring up to 12 perpetual easements. Since their allocation was less than sought, the Trust will scale back its efforts.

Cass County is having significant population growth that increases pressure on recreation opportunities and on natural resources. The County will use the grant to protect and restore forest and wetland habitats within the county through fee title purchase of industrial forest tracts. Potlatch Corporation is selling off its forest holdings in the county for development that would preclude public use of the land for hunting and other forms of recreation.

Five other programs, each with projects planned for all five of our sections, also intend to do projects in the Northern Forest section. DNR’s Wetland Wildlife Program will use its grant to accelerate shallow lakes and wetlands enhancement, restoration and protection across all five regions but a strong majority of projects sites are in the Northern Forest.

Likewise, DNR’s Forest Wildlife program plans a major acceleration in its program to address degradation and habitat loss facing wildlife in Minnesota’s forests, and will address those needs through enhancement and restoration. The plan places a goodly number of projects in the Northern Forest.

DNR’s Aquatic Habitat program likewise puts considerable projects in the Northern Forest. They plan to protect significant miles of shoreline and restore and enhance miles of river edge.

As you will see with the other four regions, all in all, projects are quite diverse and spread all over the state. (All our fund recipients will receive notably less money than they requested, and so must scale back their original plans.)

Next week I’ll profile work slated for the Metro Urbanizing section.

Darby Nelson

Darby Nelson: What Kinds of Conservation Work Will Happen Where?

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