The state of Minnesota and private conservation groups are joining to buy development rights on up to 50,000 acres of former Boise Cascade forest in Itasca and Koochiching counties.
The Department of Natural Resources and Trust for Public Land will provide the cash to buy the easements in and around the remote George Washington and Koochiching state forests.
The deal, the largest of its kind in Minnesota, will be announced today and will secure legally binding conservation easements to keep the land from being parceled off and developed.
It's being touted by Gov. Tim Pawlenty and top DNR officials as a major step toward maintaining large blocks of working timberland for environmental and economic benefits.
The landowner, Forest Capital Partners, will continue to hold title on the land and pay property taxes. The land also remains open to logging and to public access for camping, hiking and hunting.
A purchase agreement has been signed by the owners and the Trust for Public Land conservation group.
"We're taking this concept of conservation easements to reality on a large scale now," said Susan Schmidt, state director of the Trust for Public Land.
The price tag probably will hit about $15 million, split between private and state money, said Ron Nargang, state director of the Nature Conservancy.
"This is a huge step toward our goal. It's phenomenally productive timber land with trout streams and small lakes," Nargang said. "It's exactly the kind of largest tracts we need to keep from being developed. And it's right in the middle of public land that would have been fragmented forever."
Minnesota lawmakers last month earmarked $7 million in bonding money and another $500,000 from the state's environmental trust fund to buy forest conservation easements. The Blandin Foundation also has contributed to the cause, part of an Itasca County coalition that hopes to raise $26 million to preserve forest land.
While the state holds huge tracts of federal, state and county land, nearly half of Minnesota's forests are privately owned -- and that private land is being sold and developed at an unprecedented rate as big companies are pressured to turn bigger profits on investments.
Keeping large tracts of northern Minnesota forest undeveloped has become a top priority for the DNR and conservation groups after rampant development over the past 20 years.
The price of raw forest land has more than quadrupled in that time as more Minnesotans try to secure their own piece of the northwoods pie. Forested land prices are rising by 10 percent or more each year.
Experts say the rapid building of retirement homes and recreational cabins is breaking up and destroying key wildlife and bird habitat. More building sites and driveways make it harder for birds and animals that seek deep, interior forests.
Deer hunters and others are noticing more "No Trespassing" signs on land their families had hunted for decades. Much of the forest once owned by timber companies and open to the public is in danger of being sold and posted.
The conservation easements call for the land to be open to loggers, but also demand that timber harvest be conducted in an ecologically sustainable manner.
More than half of the trees used by Minnesota mills come from private land. But, in many cases, the move to smaller parcels with many owners is making it impractical or impossible to manage for the state's timber industry. Logging smaller tracts is too expensive or recreational landowners don't want their timber cut.
Conservation officials hope Minnesota didn't notice the crisis too late. The state is targeting the largest blocks of uninterrupted forest as a top priority, and using easements is cheaper than buying the land outright. Easements generally cost about a third of the purchase price.
Boston-based Forest Capital Partners purchased 309,000 acres of former Boise land in 2005 as an investment, seeking not necessarily the trees produced on the land but a high rate of investment returns from holding and selling the real estate.
"They've been very good to work with. If we had more money, they have more land we can protect," Nargang said. "We've got more fundraising to do."
The conservation deal is the second announced this year. In January, officials announced that 1,670 acres of mature hardwood forest south of Grand Rapids would be preserved through conservation easements. The $1.5 million price tag will be paid for through the federal Forest Legacy Act program and state DNR, with money approved by the Legislature.
Another 5,000 acres of easements have been purchased on Potlatch Corp. land in the rapidly developing Brainerd lakes area.
Conservation groups now must raise more private donations to match the Blandin contribution toward the Forest Capital Partners deal by March 2007.Duluth News Tribune
