Minnesota has 9.5 million acres of public forest lands that play an important role in sustaining Minnesota’s environment and economy. The policies and programs used by public timber sale programs can impact post-harvest ecological conditions and have pronounced effects on the composition, structure, and productivity of the forest in the future. Additionally, timber harvesting revenues play an important role in economic activity, employment, and tax revenue.
We will generate genome sequences of bacteria growing in wastewater treatment bioreactors, allowing us to improve phosphorus and nitrogen removal from wastewater in Minnesota and to discover novel pharmaceutical compounds.
This proposal enhances 2,857 acres of open landscape habitat in the Northern Forest and Forest/Prairie Transition Regions for Sharp-tailed Grouse and other species. Enhancement work will take place on protected lands open to public hunting including Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs), state forest lands, Scientific Natural Areas (SNAs), and county lands. In addition, this proposal seeks to acquire and restore 743 acres of sharp-tail habitat in Lake of the Woods County to be transferred to the MNDNR.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance and restore degraded habitat for fish and diverse wildlife in and along priority trout streams located on existing public lands and conservation easements in the Metro area and southeast Minnesota. Increasing threats to these highly prized, yet 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 flood events.
6,870 acres of grassland and wetland habitat will be enhanced or restored through this proposal to benefit upland dependent species on Minnesota lands open to public hunting. These include Wildlife Management Areas (WMA), Waterfowl Production Areas (WPA), and National Wildlife Refuges (NWR). We will accomplish this by working with our partners to follow best practices to conduct wetland restorations, conservation grazing, invasive tree removal, prescribed fire, and diversity seeding in the prairie, forest/prairie transition, and metro regions.
In this phase of the Enhanced Public Lands - Grassland program, Pheasants Forever (PF) will enhance or restore 4,000 acres of upland and wetland habitat. The goal of this program is to improve habitat on existing Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs), Waterfowl Production Areas (WPAs), and National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) that are open to public hunting. PF does this by working with agency partners to develop restoration and enhancement plans and hiring local, private contractors to complete work.
This program enhanced 2,491 acres of open landscape habitat for $578,200 and brought $12,000 in leverage. We did this by mowing/shearing brush, removing trees and installing firebreaks on WMA's, State Forest, and County owned land in the Norther Forest Region.
Minnesota Trout Unlimited will enhance and restore degraded habitat for fish and wildlife along coldwater streams with existing protections. We will utilize a crew of young people from diverse backgrounds to enhance habitat along Twin Cities area trout streams. Increasing threats to North Shore streams require accelerating work improving riparian forest habitat to improve stream flows and lower water temperatures, and buffering streams from larger, more frequent rainfall and flooding.
Evaluate routing, safety, water management and other environmental and design issues of the Superior Hiking Trail and establish SHTA best practices methods for carrying out the resulting redesign plans.
