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.
The Minnesota Invasive Terrestrial Plants and Pests Center (MITPPC) requests $7 million to fund up to 20 new, high-priority applied TIS research projects to improve Minnesota's natural and agricultural resources.
We will investigate the potential of natural microbes indigenous to Minnesota to biodegrade conventional plastics in the environment as a means for cleaning contaminated soils and waters across the state.
This project proposes to expand recreational opportunities on Minnesota State Trails through the rehabilitation and enhancement of existing state trails and replacement or repair of existing state trail bridges.
The Grand Marais Arts Festival, July 9-10, 2011, is a juried street celebration showcasing artists. It features 60 artist booths, live music, activities, and demonstrations in downtown Grand Marais. The proposal is to expand festival capacity.
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 project will create a high accuracy elevation dataset - critical for effectively planning and implementing water quality projects - for the state of Minnesota using LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) and geospatial mapping technologies. Although some areas of the state have been mapped previously, many counties remain unmapped or have insufficient or inadequate data. This multi-year project, to be completed in 2012, is a collaborative effort of Minnesota's Digital Elevation Committee and partners with county surveyors to ensure accuracy with ground-truthing.
The Minnesota County Biological Survey (MCBS) is an ongoing effort begun in 1987 by the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that is systematically surveying, county-by-county, the state's natural habitats. The effort identifies significant natural areas and collects and interprets data on the status, distribution, and ecology of plants, animals, and native plant communities throughout the state. Through 2009 surveys have been completed in 74 of Minnesota's 87 counties and have added nearly 17,000 new records of rare features to the DNR's information systems.
Minnesota Public Radio is the state's largest cultural organization, providing 96 percent of the population with free access to some of the best broadcast cultural programming in the world. Minnesota Public Radio is using a grant from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund to implement projects around the following four goals:
This funding is for arts, arts education, and arts access, and to preserve Minnesota's history and cultural heritage.
The Minnesota Children's Museum will develop a literacy focused exhibit to catalyze community engagement around early childhood learning and education.
Minnesota Youth in Government (YIG) is a youth-led experience that engages middle and high school youth in democratic governing leadership. Students learn about government process and gain an understanding of local, state, national and international concerns. They research and debate, participate in model Assemblies, United Nations, Youth Conferences on National Affairs, retreats and trainings, and National Judicial Competition, and gain an appreciation of diverse viewpoints in respectful ways.
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.
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.
The Minnesota State Band is a 45-piece concert band that performs a wide variety of music throughout the year. This year, the band celebrates 125 years as an arts organization. We are a part of Minnesota's rich history.
When we receive legacy funding, our goals are to increase the number of concert tours, continuing to reach out to smaller communities around Minnesota, sharing our love of music with residents, and planning joint events with school and community music and arts groups throughout our state.
Jumping worms are an invasive, exotic that poses a threat to forests by removing soil organic matter and seedlings. It is necessary to develop IPM tactics for mitigating jumping worms.
We propose a programmatic approach to achieve prioritized aquatic habitat protection for trout streams in Minnesota, with an emphasis on Southeast and Northeast Minnesota. We propose to protect 3.75 miles of trout streams, including approximately 75 acres with permanent conservation easements on private land. Protected lands will be designated as Aquatic Management Areas (AMA's) administered by the Minnesota
DNR Division of Fish and Wildlife.
Update the state's 20-year-old native plant community classification guides to incorporate new data; streamline user application and access to products; and increase connections to evolving climate and vegetation trends.
Moose, one of Minnesota's prized wildlife species, are dying at much higher rates in Minnesota than elsewhere in North America. Recently observed increases in mortality rates amongst some moose in northeastern Minnesota have led to concern that the population there may be entering a decline like that seen in the northwestern part of the state, where moose populations fell from over 4,000 to fewer than 100 in less than 20 years. Additionally the specific causes of increased mortality amongst individual moose remain under investigation.
The Ruffed Grouse Society (RGS), in collaboration with federal, state, county, tribal, university and non-governmental organizational (NGO) partners, seeks to continue the successful work of previous Moose Habitat Collaborative (Collaborative) grants to stabilize/sustain Minnesota's moose population by enhancing ~8,000 acres of cover/forage habitat for moose.
Moose, one of Minnesota’s most iconic wildlife species, are dying at increasingly higher rates in Minnesota and there is uncertainty as to why. Estimates suggest the population declined 35 percent just between 2012 to 2013, and projections suggest moose could be nearly gone from the state by 2020 if this trend is not halted and, ideally, reversed.
The Minnesota Moose Habitat Collaborative enhanced approximately 7349 acres of moose habitat in northern forests of Northeastern Minnesota within Cook, Lake and St. Louis counties on county, state, and federal land.
Native to the western United States and Canada, mountain pine beetle is considered the most devastating forest insect in North America. Trees usually die as a result of infestation and an unprecedented outbreak in the west is currently decimating pine forests there. While mountain pine beetle is not presently believed to reside in Minnesota, there are risks posed by an expanding species range resulting from warming climate and the potential for accidental introduction via lumber imports from infested areas.
Native to the western United States and Canada, mountain pine beetle is considered the most devastating forest insect in North America. Trees usually die as a result of infestation and an unprecedented outbreak in the west is currently decimating pine forests there. While mountain pine beetle is not presently believed to reside in Minnesota, there are risks posed by an expanding species range resulting from warming climate and the potential for accidental introduction via lumber imports from infested areas.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by MPCA EAO staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, and fieldwork expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities within the described priority watersheds.
Lake Monitoring: Lakes are monitored for nutrients, clarity and other information to provide the data needed to assess the aquatic recreation use support.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by MPCA EAO staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, and fieldwork expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities within the described priority watersheds. Lake Monitoring: Lakes are monitored for nutrients, clarity and other information to provide the data needed to assess the aquatic recreation use support. Biological and Water Chemistry Stream Monitoring: Monitoring to assess the conditions of streams in each watershed.
This project supports monitoring and assessment activities by MPCA EAO staff and includes lab analysis, equipment, and fieldwork expenses associated with monitoring and assessment activities within the described priority watersheds. Lake Monitoring: Lakes are monitored for nutrients, clarity and other information to provide the data needed to assess the aquatic recreation use support. Biological and Water Chemistry Stream Monitoring: Monitoring to assess the conditions of streams in each watershed.
The goal of this project is to analyze and document database architecture, platform, table structures, systems and data fields at six Minnesota agencies (Board of Soil and Water Resources, Department of Natural Resources, MN Department of Agriculture, MN Department of Health, Metropolitan Council, and MN Pollution Control Agency) for 30+ databases related to water.
1. Coordinate language instruction for Grand Portage students from Head Start to Cook County High School in order to produce fluent speakers. 2. Establish language programming for families: language table, radio program, and language camps. 3. Promote collaboration on Ojibwe language programs among federal, state, local, and reservation entities. 4. Develop new Ojibwe language projects based on community input.
1. Coordinate language instruction for Grand Portage students from Head Start to Cook Country High School in order to produce fluent speakers. 2. Establish language programming for families: language table, radio program, and language camps. 3. Promotoe collaboration on Ojibwe language programs among federal, state, local, and reservation entities. 4. Develop new Ojibwe language projects based on community input.
