Outdoors
Forest Service’s purchase from a conservation group aims to help protect critical wildlife and water habitat. It’s connected to larger negotiations involving state school trust land and Boundary Waters.
By Bob Timmons
The U.S. Forest Service will buy more than 6,200 acres of land in St. Louis County, in a deal aimed at expanding the Superior National Forest and improving the management of wildlife habitat, officials announced Wednesday.
It’s likely the first of several moves after long discussions over ownership of significant parcels inside and outside the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW). The agency is working on two other land acquisitions.
Most of the parcels in the deal announced Wednesday cover critical habitat for Canada lynx, an endangered species. Superior National Forest Supervisor Tom Hall said in a memo that the acquisition also will improve wetland protections and some water access for the public.
“Consolidating federal ownership of these lands will promote effective management for recreation opportunities, public access, and other uses and values,” he said.
The land, now owned by The Conservation Fund (TCF) nonprofit, is getting appraised. The Forest Service initially considered buying 17,000 acres and analyzed the land with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources and St. Louis County.
“Because it was such a patchwork of land ownership, that is why the Forest Service is not buying the entire 17,000 acres,” Forest Service spokesperson Joy Liptak VanDrie told the Minnesota Star Tribune. The DNR and St. Louis County are evaluating the remaining TCF parcels.
The acquisition is significant because it has connections to a larger proposed deal involving the agency’s purchase of about 80,000 acres of land owned and managed by the state of Minnesota — school trust lands — in the BWCAW. The Forest Service also is interested in buying 3,200 acres of tax-forfeited land in the wilderness from St. Louis County.
The Forest Service announced the framework for all of the possible acquisitions in July. The agency would use money from the federal Land and Conservation Fund to settle yearslong negotiations with state officials over what to do with 80,000 acres of school trust land secured decades before the region became a federally protected wilderness. The dynamic has created supervision issues because the DNR manages trust lands, using timber sales and mineral leases, for example, to generate revenue for Minnesota schools.
More than 90% of the school trust lands, or about 2 million acres, are in 10 northern counties.
The Forest Service said it expects to decide on the school trust land acquisition and a third deal involving tax-forfeited land next year.
Bob Timmons covers news across Minnesota’s outdoors, from natural resources to recreation to wildlife.
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Forest Service’s purchase from a conservation group aims to help protect critical wildlife and water habitat. It’s connected to larger negotiations involving state school trust land and Boundary Waters.
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