A public-land transfer proposed Tuesday would mean selling more than 12,000 acres from a state agency to the Department of Natural Resources, with the hope of conserving environmentally sensitive areas and opening them to recreation while acquiring lands for logging that otherwise could be developed.
Additionally, northern local governments' tax burdens would ease as land now off tax rolls - because it is controlled by the Bureau of Commissioners of Public Lands - would generate payments from the DNR in lieu of taxes.
"It's win-win," said Tia Nelson, in her second year as head of the bureau, the state's senior agency, created in 1848. "Under no circumstances will I allow us to be divided on this."
Preferred over subdivisions
At the heart of the proposal by a bipartisan group of legislators is the notion that "working forests" - those where logging occurs - are preferable to opening up the lands to residential and commercial development.
Because many timber companies, large and small, are pulling out of business in northern Wisconsin, Nelson, daughter of the late environmentalist governor Gaylord Nelson, said there was an urgency to consolidate forestland.
"We have a serious concern about the fragmentation of our forests," said Paul DeLong, the chief state forester. "This proposal would facilitate the consolidation of blocks of forestland, and that's a positive."
The deal proposed Tuesday amounts basically to a land transfer, and at the center is the bureau, which holds some 77,000 acres. The bureau directs most profits from logging or sale of its land to the state's libraries.
The 12,000 acres in the proposal have been identified as sensitive and would be sold to the DNR, which would in turn be able to open them for recreation.
The profits would be used by the bureau to acquire lands for logging, preferably contiguous to or nearby existing logging operations.
Nelson said she expected support for the plan from environmental groups.Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
