Wild Rice Shoreland Protection

The second phase of Wild Rice Shoreland Protection was intended to protect additional wild rice shoreland and continue the success of Phase I. BWSR, DU, DNR, SWCDs and other partners (see below) worked closely together to continue protection of vulnerable and ecologically valuable wild rice lake shorelands and grow the program which has led to subsequent phases III-V with Phase VI proposed for ML19 funding.

Wild rice shoreland encompasses a complex of shallow lakes, rivers, and shallow bays of deeper lakes that support rice and provide some of the most important habitat for wetland-dependent wildlife species in Minnesota. Wild rice habitat is especially important to Minnesota’s migrating and breeding waterfowl and provides Minnesotans with unique recreation opportunities: hunting waterfowl and harvesting the rice itself for food. 

Historically, wild rice occurred throughout Minnesota and extended into northern Iowa. Wild rice has since been extirpated from most of its southern range due to human impacts. Today, the heart of the states wild rice acreage falls within this project work area comprised of eight counties Aitkin, Carlton, Cass, Crow Wing, Hubbard, Itasca, St. Louis, and Wadena. These counties also account for 70% of harvesting trips for state licensed harvesters.

This wild rice shoreland complex exists primarily in the state's Forest Section and remains intact with good water quality, but it is subject to intense development pressure that, if allowed, will degrade the resource. Recent well-documented population and development trends pose a serious threat to wild rice habitat in the Northern Forest Section. This population and development boom has reduced the availability of developable shoreline on recreational lakes, resulting in shallow lakes, rivers, and shallow bays containing wild rice being increasingly targeted for shoreline development.

Shallow lakes and rivers in the forest are very susceptible to the impacts of shoreline development. The scoring and ranking process placed a strong emphasis on protecting the most vulnerable shorelines that were offered. Tracts were selected based on the degree they help permanently protect all the land around a given wild rice water body.

Through the work of six SWCD offices, BWSR acquired 26  RIM shoreland easements from wild rice lake and river shoreline landowners. The BWSR/SWCD easements were acquired using the standard RIM process. Future monitoring and enforcement will be conducted via the standard RIM monitoring process.

Although no fee-title acquisitions were completed during this phase the work of the partners paid off in subsequent phases as groundwork from this phase resulted in fee-title acquisition in Phase 3.