The Metro Big Rivers (MBR) Partnership successfully completed its work under the Phase 6 / ML2015 OHF appropriation, protecting 485 acres across 5 projects (198% of proposed) and restoring and enhancing a total of 1,055 acres (185% of proposed). The Partnership expended 99% of the OHF funds granted awarded to it and leveraged the grant by 57% with nearly $1,141,000 in other funds.
Metro Big Rivers Phase 12 will protect 622 acres in fee title and 319 acres in permanent conservation easement, restore 53 acres and enhance 587 acres of priority habitat in the big rivers corridors in the Metropolitan Urbanizing Area (1,558 acres total). Partners will leverage OHF grants at least 14% with partner funds, private donations, local government contributions, and landowner donations of easement value. Significant volunteer engagement will be invested in habitat enhancement activities.
This Minnesota Forests for the Future project protected 1,947 acres of forest and forested wetlands with 1,478 acres of perpetual working forest conservation easements and 469 acres of fee title acquisition in Cass, Hubbard, Lake and Morrison Counties; ensuring public benefits, management access and sustainable managed forests.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited and its partners, chapters, and volunteers enhanced habitat for trout, as well as other fish, game and wildlife, in or along more than 9 miles of coldwater streams around the state. We adapting to challenging conditions caused by the pandemic by shifting budget from small projects using hand labor (which was largely unavailable for the past 3 years) to very large scale projects utilizing heavy machinery and extensive habitat materials.
The Minnesota Forest Recovery Project completed habitat enhancement on 5519 unique acres of public lands in Lake, Cass, Itasca, St. Louis, Cook, and Beltrami Counties. Multiple treatments on some parcels ensured success of enhancement efforts.
The Minnesota Forests for the Future Program will use $4.573 million in the Northern and Southeast Forest sections to protect and enhance habitat. In the Northern Forest, we propose to protect 1,500 acres with permanent conservation easements and 400 acres in fee title acquisition, and to enhance 100 acres. In the Southeast Forest, we propose to add 100 acres to the Richard J. Dorer Memorial Hardwood State Forest and enhance 300 acres of existing state forest land.
This Minnesota Forests for the Future project protected 178 acres of forest, forested wetlands, shoreline, shoreland wetland and other riparian areas with a perpetual working forest conservation easement in Crow Wing County ensuring public benefits, management access and sustainably managed forests.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited and its partners, chapters, and volunteers enhanced habitat for trout, as well as other fish, game and wildlife, in or along 10 miles of coldwater streams around the state. We adapting to challenging conditions caused by the pandemic by shifting budget from smaller projects using hand labor (which was largely unavailable for the past 3 years) to larger scale projects utilizing heavy machinery.
The MN Forests for the Future Program will use $2,971,000 in the Northern, Southeast and Transition Forest sections to protect 1,966 acres of habitat with permanent working forest conservation easements. Phase 8 builds upon past land protection work and focuses on permanently protecting working forests threatened by conversion to non-forest uses. This program will also protect habitat in priority cold-water refuge watersheds by implementing protection strategies identified in local watershed plans.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance and restore degraded habitat for fish and wildlife in and along priority coldwater streams located on existing public lands and conservation easements. Trout streams are a relatively scarce resource. Increasing threats to them require accelerating habitat work to reduce the backlog of degraded stream reaches, improve riparian forests to improve stream flows and temperatures, and buffer streams from larger, more frequent rainfall and flood events. Outcomes will be maximized by improving the connectivity of habitat and fish and wildlife populations.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance and restore habitat for fish and wildlife in and along priority coldwater streams located on existing conservation easements and public lands around the state. Trout streams are a relatively scarce resource and increasing threats to them require accelerating habitat work to reduce the backlog of degraded stream reaches. Outcomes will be maximized by improving the connectivity of habitat and fish and wildlife populations. Timely maintenance on old projects will ensure habitat outcomes continue for many years.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited enhanced in-stream and riparian habitat for trout and other wildlife along more than 11 miles of coldwater streams across the state. We far exceeded our original targets, enhancing habitat on 135 acres rather than 78. We completed 16 separate stream habitat projects. Leveraging other funding and efficiently contracting projects allowed us to add habitat projects and adjust to changing conditions.
This program proposes a 15-year goal to provide protection to the remaining 90,000 acres of native prairie/savanna, a 20-year goal to restore and protect an additional 500,000 acres of diverse grasslands/savannas, and a 10-year goal to increase management capacity to annually manage 300,000 acres of grassland and savannas per year. This proposal takes the first steps to achieve these goals by initiating a comprehensive, coordinated and collaborative prairie conservation initiative. Annual investments by the LSOHC will be required to realize these ambitious outcomes.
The goals for this project were to: protect 1,200 acres native prairie/wetland/savanna; restore 250 acres prairie/wetland; enhance 6,000 acres grassland/savanna with fire, invasive species removal, and grazing; and continue a new prairie conservation model. This phase resulted in a total of 1,425 acres protected, 22,298 acres enhanced, and 110 acres restored. When combined with phases 1 and 2 of the Prairie Recovery Program we have cumulatively protected 4,070 acres, enhanced 58,134 acres and restored 314 acres using OHF funds.
The Minnesota Moose Collaborative (Collaborative) has implemented a variety of habitat enhancement treatments across the core of moose range in Northeast Minnesota on County, State, Federal, and Tribal lands since 2013. Moose browse has been improved through treatments that regenerate preferred brush and tree species. The Collaborative has also planted over two million trees including white spruce, white pine, jack pine, and white cedar.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited enhanced in-stream and riparian habitat for trout and other wildlife along coldwater streams located on public lands and Aquatic Management Area easements across the state. We completed 12 separate projects encompassing 118 acres and 9.3 miles of stream habitat. Leveraging other funding and efficiently contracting projects allowed us to increase the scope of some projects and adjust to changing conditions. We enhanced more acres of habitat and more stream length than originally proposed.
Goals for Phase 2 of the MN Prairie Recovery Program were to: protect 1200 acres native prairie/savanna; restore 250 acres grassland; enhance 6000 acres grassland/savanna with fire, invasive species removal, and grazing; and continue a new prairie conservation model.
This Minnesota Forests for the Future project protected 19,439 acres of forest and forested wetlands with perpetual working forest conservation easements in Lake, Itasca and Koochiching Counties ensuring public access, management access and sustainably managed forests.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited volunteers, chapters and partners will enhance habitat for fish, game and wildlife in and along numerous coldwater streams on existing Aquatic Management Areas and other public lands around the state, while leveraging approximately $3 million for this.
This Minnesota Forests for the Future project protected 3,293 acres of forest and forested wetlands with perpetual working forest conservation easements in Lake and Crow Wing Counties ensuring public benefits, management access and sustainable managed forests.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited and its partners, chapters, and volunteers enhanced habitat for trout, as well as other fish, game and wildlife, in or along 9 miles of coldwater streams around the state. We met our target for acres of enhanced habitat, by adapting to challenging conditions caused by the pandemic.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance degraded habitat for fish and diverse wildlife in and along priority trout streams with existing permanent protection. Increasing threats to these relatively scarce resources require accelerating habitat work to reduce the backlog of degraded stream reaches and buffer streams from the increased frequency and intensity of large rainfall and flooding. In the process of restoring habitat, we also increase climate resilience by reconnecting streams to their floodplains and removing barriers to fish movement to colder water.
The Minnesota's Heritage Forest - Transition to Public Ownership Program is focused on the protection of forest lands in northern Minnesota by purchasing land from The Conservation Fund (TCF) for permanent conservation, management and protection by MN DNR and northern MN Counties. In 2020 TCF purchased more than 72,000 acres of forest land Minnesota from the PotlatchDeltic Corp., securing these lands to provide time for conservation partners to permanently conserve these forest lands.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance and restore habitat for fish and wildlife in and along priority coldwater streams located on existing conservation easements and public lands around the state. Trout streams are a relatively scarce resource and increasing threats to them require accelerating habitat work to reduce the backlog of degraded stream reaches. Population outcomes will be maximized by improving the connectivity of habitat and fish and wildlife populations, and building upon work on adjacent sections.
The Minnesota Deer Hunters Association (MDHA), in collaboration with county, state, federal, tribal, university and non-governmental organizational (NGO) partners, seeks to continue the successful work of the Moose Habitat Collaborative (Collaborative) by improving nearly 10,000 acres of foraging habitat for moose in northeast Minnesota. The project builds on the Collaborative’s previous efforts to enhance forest habitat by increasing stand complexity and production while maintaining thermal components of the landscape with variable enhancement methods.
Northern Minnesota's forests are increasingly challenged by invasive species, insect pests, a changing climate, and fragmentation. Some habitats have declined substantially, including long-lived-conifers, young-forest, and large-patch habitats. These habitats are critical for numerous game and non-game species of concern. This project seeks to protect 3,445 acres of intact forest habitat through conservation easements and enhance 11,555 acres of degraded forests. The enhancements will increase long-lived conifers, young forest gaps, riparian forest complexity, and patch-size diversity.
In Phase 6, The Mississippi Headwaters Board in partnership with The Trust for Public Land and BWSR assisted by 8 County SWCDs will permanently protect an additional 1,235 acres of critical fish and wildlife habitat along the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River, its major tributaries, and 9 headwaters lakes.
The Mississippi Headwaters Board in partnership with The Trust for Public Land and the Minnesota Board of Water and Soil Resources, assisted by 8 County Soil and Water Conservation Districts, will continue to permanently protect critical shorelands and wildlife habitats along the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River. Fee title acquisitions and conservation easements on priority lands will create and expand contiguous habitat corridors/complexes and reduce forest fragmentation from development to benefit fish, game and non-game wildlife, and migratory waterfowl.
This acquisition protected 2.7 miles of Mississippi river shoreline and nearly 2,000 acres of wetland and forest/upland habitat through fee title acquisition just east of Brainerd, MN.
Through the ML2015 Mississippi Headwaters Habitat Partnership appropriation, we permanently protected 1,923 acres of wildlife habitat in the quickly developing Mississippi Headwaters area. These accomplishments exceed the appropriation goal by 209%. Utilizing both fee-title acquisition and conservation easements, the partnership protected 10 projects, totaling over 11 miles of shoreline along the Mississippi River, its tributaries and nearby lakes.
The Mississippi Headwaters Habitat Corridor Project Phase 1 (ML 16) achieved permanent protection of 1,478 acres of fish and wildlife habitat, including 11 miles of shoreland on the Mississippi River and on an adjacent lake. This accomplishment exceeded the appropriation goal by 178%. Utilizing fee-title acquisition and RIM conservation easements adjacent to public land, large habitat protection complexes were established, including one complex in Crow Wing County that protected over 9 contiguous miles along the Mississippi River.
The Mississippi Headwaters Board in partnership with The Trust for Public Land and BWSR assisted by 8 County SWCDs will permanently protect an additional 830 acres of critical fish and wildlife habitat along the first 400 miles of the Mississippi River, its major tributaries, 9 headwaters lakes and adjacent minor watersheds. Phases 1-7 have already protected 10,259 acres and 47 miles of shoreland using fee title acquisitions and conservation easements to create or expand permanently protected aquatic and upland wildlife habitat corridors/complexes.
The Mississippi Headwaters Habitat Corridor Project Phase IV (ML 18) achieved permanent protection of 1,590 acres of critical fish and wildlife habitat, including 12 miles of shoreland on the Mississippi River and adjacent lakes/tributaries. This accomplishment exceeded the appropriation goal by over 200%. Seven (7) fee-title acquisitions and 12 RIM conservation easements adjacent to public land created or expanded large habitat protection complexes. Acquisitions included 4 additions to county forests and 3 additions to DNR public land.
The Mississippi Headwaters Habitat Corridor Project Phase III (ML 17) achieved permanent protection of 1,694 acres of critical fish and wildlife habitat, including 14.5 miles of shoreland on the Mississippi River and adjacent lakes/tributaries. This accomplishment exceeded the appropriation goal by over 200%. Fee-title acquisitions and RIM conservation easements adjacent to public land created or expanded large habitat protection complexes, including a new 232 acre WMA in Crow Wing County.
