From the earliest days of my 30-year career, I have been intrigued by the notion that forests can provide both habitats for wildlife and a living for people, if conserved and managed well. I think I developed this appreciation for the nexus of people and the environment from my grandfather, who was passionate about the culture of northern Maine and the amazing forests, woodsmen, wildlife and waters there. He also saw the threat of unsustainable practices, chronicled in his diaries from the early 1900s when he often visited logging camps in his travels as the state’s northern-most surgeon. Working in a growing nation developing its renewable resources, he pondered what would indeed be “renewed.” The land, as it turns out, is not renewable—and that lesson helped me choose my career path and pursue my passion for conserving our nation’s important forests.

As in Maine, working forests define the northern Wisconsin landscape, providing timber for the state’s mills, jobs for local residents, tax revenues for local communities, habitat for wildlife, recreation opportunities for outdoor enthusiasts and clean drinking water for thousands of residents. But forests across the nation began to decline in size starting in the 1980s, when paper and other forest industries began selling their lands, mostly to investors.

The very last of those massive paper company holdings, in all of the United States, was Wausau Paper Company’s 67,000 acres in northwestern Wisconsin— an amazing landscape of green, with young trees and old in a continual growth and re-growth cycle once fueled by near-constant wildfire but now carried on by the loggers. A place where sharp-tailed grouse perform their showy mating rituals each spring, many of the forest’s ponds have their own nesting loon pairs, and in summer the blueberries pop up and feed humans and bears alike. 

An aerial view of the Brule-St. Croix Legacy Forest. Photo by Coldsnap Photography.

I’m proud to say that in 2015, the Fund and our partners completed the largest land conservation effort in Wisconsin history to protect this extraordinary property. Now known as the Brule-St. Croix Legacy Forest, this land will remain a vibrant and sustainably managed forest for generations to come thanks to a working forest conservation easement that prohibits development, requires sustainable and habitat-friendly forest practices, ensures public access, and protects the property’s environmental value.

The journey to protect the Brule-St. Croix Legacy Forest followed many twists and turns. The property was identified in 1998 as a top priority landscape for conserving the biodiversity native to the region. Saving land requires building relationships, which I did with Wausau Paper Company, who appreciated the Fund’s notion of conserving working forests and no-nonsense style of business. We almost had a deal on the land in 2008, but the market crash made the decision to sell a conservation easement too difficult for the company. Instead, they decided to invest in a new paper plant in another state, and chose to gain capital for their new investment by selling their land in Wisconsin.

Along with our partner, The Lyme Timber Company of New Hampshire, The Conservation Fund won the property at auction in 2011. The Fund went on to provide a loan securing Lyme’s commitment to sell a conservation easement to the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, while also helping to design the easement itself.

Wisconsin’s Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program provided the lion’s share of the funds for the purchase of the easement, but only after a furious effort to make the case to elected officials that this project would be an investment in the state’s economic security as well as habitat conservation. Additionally, this significant effort was made possible with funding from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund through the Forest Legacy Program, as well as key support from several other foundations.

Now owned and managed by The Lyme Timber Company, the Brule-St. Croix Legacy Forest is truly a remarkable place. The easement preserves approximately 83 small lakes and ponds located within the headwaters of the St. Croix and Bois Brule Rivers. These rivers serve as sources of drinking water to many nearby towns. Under the terms of the easement, vast stretches of sustainably managed forestland will help to filter and clean the water while also providing a steady flow of wood products to local mills and a shifting mosaic of forest bird habitat.

A bird’s-eye of a few of Brule-St. Croix Legacy Forest’s 83 ponds and small lakes, which rise and fall over time with changes in groundwater level. Photo by Coldsnap Photography.

The working forest easement ensures public recreational access to 39 miles of hiking, biking, skiing, snowmobile and ATV trails. In addition, the conserved acreage provides globally significant pine barrens habitat for many game and non-game species including sharp-tailed grouse, white-tailed deer, black bear, woodcock and numerous migratory songbirds.

The collaboration between the public and private sector to secure a working forest easement guarantees the sustainable stewardship of the forestland, keeping the property in private ownership and on the tax rolls while supporting local jobs. At The Conservation Fund, we talk about the promise of “and”—helping the environment AND the economy. No project better exhibits this, or has realized such support. I think my grandfather would have approved.