Activities of the Collaborative (courtesy of Jim Manolis, MN DNR):

Past:

-Nature Conservancy and Lake County agreed on an approach to property tax issues on Nature Conservancy Property

-Lake County assisted The Nature Conservancy with road maintenance and access issues.

-The Nature Conservancy assisted Lake County in acquisition of 500 acres of land within the landscape.

-Lake County, The Nature Conservancy, MN DNR, and Minnesota Parks and Trails Council completed a complicated land excahange to consolidate ownerships

-The Nature Conservancy, with help from Lake County, assisted DNR with protection of an important recreation trail property within the landscape.

- The Collaborative developed and shared information on the landscape including: existing forest inventory and biological data, and identifying and filling gaps in knowledge, summary of forest types in the area, an assessment of the range of natural variability of the forest systems in the landscape, forest management and silvicultural options that attempt to emulate natural disturbance regimes.

- University researchers, along with the Nature Conservancy and Lake County, conducted hardwood siliviculture research to explore ways to increase economic and biodiversity value of northern hardwoods.

Current:

- The Nature Conservancy is developing a management plan for the Upper Manitou Forest Preserve that takes into account FRC Landscape goals as well as the adjacent owners land management objectives.

-The Nature Conservancy and the DNR are developing computer models to explore different management strategies for the landscape and assess benefits of coordination.

- Partners are conducting a collaborative lare-patch management project, where landowners are identifying large forest patches that will be enhanced by coordinated management and ecological silviculture approaches.

-Continued hardwoods silviculture research

-Partners monitoring condition of the landscape through satellite imagery and field sampling.

-Partners are exploring potential land exchanges/purchases to reduce devastation of timberlands and to consolidate ownership patterns.

The Collaborative is currently in the process of defining key goals and tactics to strive for. Thus far they have experienced great success with sharing information and learning different perspectives.

They are in the early stages of negotiating the implication of specific strategies.