This Issue

Surprising Benefactors

This past fall Ruth and Helen Peterson graced Minnesota Conservation Volunteer with a bequest from their will. The two sisters gave an unexpected gift of $89,000 — by far the largest one ever received for production of this magazine. Serendipitously, the amount almost exactly matched the shortfall in our fiscal 2005 income.

Who were these surprising benefactors?

The Peterson sisters grew up on their family farm near Grove City. After their father died, the sisters and their mother continued to farm the 80 acres. Ruth was an ardent conservationist; Helen was a schoolteacher. Together the retired sisters planned their legacy, which also included a bequest to Prairie Woods Environmental Learning Center and funds for a college scholarship for forestry students, in honor of their uncle who had been a state forester. Their gifts truly extend the reach of conservation education.

Each of us has a chance to leave a conservation legacy. Regardless of the size of our estate, we have a chance to act on behalf of our environment and natural resources.

In this issue, "Breaking up the Forest" presents an opportunity to recognize and respond to an urgent conservation problem. Large tracts of private forest land up north are being subdivided and sold for development. These are woods that many Minnesotans pass through or visit without wondering who they belong to. No borders divide them from adjoining public lands, so a person might simply see them as part of the whole. But recent real estate transactions show that these are not our woods.

Our story discusses the complex patterns of forest ownership, the sudden turnover of real estate, and the questions surrounding the future of Minnesota forests. Forests broken into smaller, fragmented parcels are no longer sustainable as wildlife habitat, public recreation areas, or timberland. The breakup raises concerns about forest-based jobs and economies and the lives of people and wildlife that visit or inhabit the north woods.

Development threatens forests worldwide, and other places might offer precedents to follow. In Massachusetts, for example, development is consuming open space at a rate of 40 acres daily. In their 2005 scientific report called Wildlands and Woodlands, foresters David Foster and David Kittredge boldly propose protecting 2.25 million woodland acres in Massachusetts -- nearly a third of the state — for sustainable timber harvest, wildlife habitat, and human enjoyment.

Perhaps no place on Earth better illustrates the cumulative pressure of human population than China does. Forests there do not sustain wood consumption. Since 1998 China has banned logging in most natural forests. According to Zou Hanru writing in the China Daily, every year people in China throw away 45 billion pairs of chopsticks, effectively consuming 25 million trees from Burma, Brazil, Russia, or Africa.

Sustainability is an issue worldwide as forests disappear. The United States imports more wood than it exports. Before European settlement, Minnesota had 31 million acres of forest. Today, with 16 million acres and 5 million people, our state is a net importer of wood, says University of Minnesota forest products professor Jim Bowyer.

Among the homegrown initiatives to sustain and harvest Minnesota forests are the White Earth Land Recovery Project and its community land trust. Like the Minnesota Land Trust and the Trust for Public Land, the reservation-based nonprofit looks for individuals to join and help fund the trust. Using voluntary conservation easements, forest certification programs, and other tools, the trust helps landowners protect their land. Founding director Winona LaDuke says the trust can help ensure protection of natural resources "for the next seven generations, and in perpetuity."

Everlasting solutions are what Minnesotans need to keep large working forests in the state. Conservation easements on private forest land can serve that purpose. To secure them, the DNR and its conservation partners will need public funds and private donations.

Other alternatives might work too. All solutions will require partners. Perhaps some partners will be—like the Peterson sisters—surprising sources of support.

Kathleen Weflen, editor
kathleen.weflen@state.mn.us