DNR adds more public land in $7.2 million deal

The Natural Resources Board approved the purchase of an easement of nearly 21,000 acres in Sawyer County on Wednesday for $7.2 million in a deal that ensures public access to northern Wisconsin forest land in perpetuity.

Wisconsin officials struck a deal with Northwoods ATP, a limited partnership owned by a Danish pension company, that keeps the land in the company’s hands but ensures access for fishing, hunting and other recreational uses.

This includes motorized access of nearly 21 miles of roads on the property in the towns of Winter and Draper.

The deal is the state’s ninth largest under the Knowles-Nelson Stewardship program, dating back to 1998.

Under Republican Gov. Scott Walker, this is the administration’s second-largest transaction and represents a continuation of a trend in which the state buys easements, rather than makes outright property purchases, which cost more.

Walker, who is running for re-election, made a surprise announcement of the state’s intention on May 11 at the annual meeting of the Wisconsin Conservation Congress in Green Bay.

The deal comes as the stewardship program is set to sunset in 2020 unless reauthorized by the governor and the Legislature. Under the GOP-controlled Legislature since 2011, funding for the program has been cut as lawmakers worried about the debt burden from bonding and have questioned whether the state was reaching a limit on what it could afford to own and manage.

“We hope this is an indication that he values the program,” Matt Dallman, director of conservation for the Nature Conservancy in Wisconsin, said in an interview, referring to Walker.

Many of the state’s biggest acquisitions have been triggered by fundamental changes in the paper industry beginning in the late 1980s, when competition and a wave of consolidations prompted many companies to shed timber assets and concentrate on making paper.

That put massive swaths of timberland in the hands of investment companies and prompted worries about future timber supplies and the ecological effect of breaking large blocks of forest into smaller ones.

Northwoods ATP and its managers will continue to log timber off the land under the state’s managed forest law, which requires logging to be conducted in a sustainable manner.

In Wednesday’s action, $515,000 of the cost will be set aside and placed in an endowment fund to pay for the cost of the upkeep of roads on the property.

The property contains 41% of northern hardwoods, including large stands of red maple. In addition to deer, the land is home to other mammals such as elk, black bear, wolves, coyotes and bobcat. The property also includes 11 unnamed lakes totaling 12 acres and two Class 1 trout streams.

The board approved the transaction at its regular meeting in Madison by a vote of 6-0.