The Minnesota Department of Natural Resources is pleased to release a summary highlighting several significant agency accomplishments from 2025 (https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/aboutdnr/minnesota-dnr-2025-accomplishments.pdf). Each of the featured accomplishments helped advance the DNR’s mission of working with Minnesotans to conserve and manage the state’s natural resources, provide outdoor recreation opportunities, and provide for commercial uses of natural resources in a way that creates a sustainable quality of life.
“I’m honored to celebrate the stewardship and innovation at Minnesota DNR that improved public lands and waters and the experiences of Minnesotans in 2025,” DNR Commissioner Sarah Strommen said. “These accomplishments reflect Minnesota’s commitment to conservation and sustainability that ensures access to public land, clean water, healthy habitat, safe outdoors experiences and economic benefits.”
In 2025, the DNR:
- Closed on its largest land acquisition in recent history, protecting nearly 16,000 aces of wildlife habitat, water, and working forests, and increasing recreation opportunities.
- Completed a four-year, $10 million project to restore and transform Perch Lake in the St. Louis River estuary.
- Implemented Get Out MORE (Modernize Outdoor Recreation Experiences) projects to increase access to outdoor spaces, modernize camping infrastructure and experiences, upgrade public water access sites, improve fish hatcheries and fishing opportunities, and restore streams.
- Completed the installation of the Ecological Monitoring Network to detect ecological changes within wetlands, prairies and forests in response to stressors such as climate change, invasive species, loss of pollinators, and changes in how we use our land and water resources.
- Opened applications for a historic $11 million in grants to help communities plant, maintain and protect trees across the state.
- Protected life, property and natural resources through emergency response and recovery operations across Minnesota, including the major windstorm affecting four counties in northern Minnesota and three large fires in St. Louis County.
Some other accomplishments included: finalizing Minnesota’s Wildlife Action Plan for 2025 to 2035, completing the last of seven new master plans for Minnesota’s largest Wildlife Management Areas, and reducing watercraft-related fatalities to historic lows.
“We’re proud of the many ways our work intersects with the lives of Minnesotans and are grateful for the opportunity to do this work,” Commissioner Sarah Strommen said.
While not an exhaustive list, this year’s overview reflects the scope and importance of the work the DNR does for Minnesotans. A summary of these accomplishments, categorized under the goals outlined in the DNR’s Conservation Agenda, (https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/conservationagenda/index.html) is available on the DNR website (https://files.dnr.state.mn.us/aboutdnr/minnesota-dnr-2025-accomplishments.pdf). The four goals that drive the DNR’s work are:
- Natural resources conservation
- Outdoor recreation
- Natural resources economy
- Operational excellence
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