The DNR has paid me to plant trees and improve my private recreational land. Why would they do that if their goal was to kill all the trees and eliminate my ownership of it?
It wouldn't be their first contradicting management plan. Here we go:
The forest and wildlife managers have a mandate to deliver the highest timber value from state timber properties (public lands). Straight from the Sustainable Forest Resources Act of 1995:
In 2005, the state of MN gave away management of our forests to the Forest Stewardship Council, ran by a bunch of people in Germany that have no accountability to us. They do regular audits of our forest management, and if they see too much deer browse, they order the state to reduce the deer herd.
Every year, the germans send in auditors to rip apart management of our forests, and they provide nifty reports to ensure nobody needs to be spanked. They took down the older ones we were using during the MDDI days to showcase that MN had surrendered management of our forests to an international entity, and they were telling the DNR they were in violation of their certification because pockets of the state had too many deer and it was affecting profitability of the forests. You can view the most recent ones here.
The DNR never misses an opportunity to moan about the parcelization problem and how it affects their ability to make money off the forests. It's in almost every forestry report they produce. Here's one they did back in 2010 just on this very subject. Note that they see private land ownership (you) as the single biggest threat to their property and money.
The state of MN is pouring hundreds of millions of dollars, and some years, billions of dollars into buying up land or easements on land. I think they've got more money than they have willing sellers. The recent run up in inflation is sure to put a dent in their ability to grab it as fast as they'd like, but I'm sure they'll keep at it. I've got the links at home that show the LCCMR or LSOHC master plan for how many acres they want to acquire in all the different regions in MN.
Lastly, where are they ripping out the trees? Here. Cross the border into South Dakota, they're putting in shelter belts and they have tons of pheasants. MN and the Feds can't rip them out fast enough. I used to mushroom hunt Gislason Lake NWR by Marshall, MN. One year we showed up and they had about 80 acres sheered clean with USFWS excavators. Every plum, dogwood, crabapple, willow, spruce, cedar, elm, ash, oak, etc was ripped out and piled up.
For many people who live on the spacious prairies of western Minnesota, planting a tree can be a personal statement about their conservation ethic. On this sweeping landscape dominated by vast tilled fields of active farms, and the stubby grass and woody overgrowth of farms long-dormant, trees...
www.fws.gov
www.outdoorlife.com
