http://www.mnhabitatcorridors.org/
Fifteen state, federal, and non-profit organizations have joined together in an effort to protect and restore critical habitat for fish, wildlife, and native plant communities. Earlier phases of this project resulted in the restoration, enhancement, or conservation of more than 100,000 acres.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/metroconservationcorridors/index.html
In an effort similar to the Habitat Corridors Partnership, seven organizations have come together to protect and restore critical habitat in Anoka, Carver, Chisago, Dakota, Goodhue, Hennepin, Isanti, Le Sueur, Ramsey, Scott, Sherburne, Sibley, Washington, and Wright counties.

This appropriation to the University of Minnesota’s Minnesota Geological Survey and Department of Natural Resources will help collect information on the geology of Minnesota below the surface, including the state’s critical groundwater resources. The project will pay particular attention to the Mt. Simon aquifer, one of the major sources of water in central Minnesota. In addition, the Minnesota Geological Survey will produce atlases of the geology of Blue Earth, Le Sueur and Nicollet counties.

Three state parks and trails will benefit from the addition of newly acquired land under this Department of Natural Resources program. Monson Lake State Park in eastern Swift County will add approximately 158 acres that provide additional access to a high quality lake, while 400 acres of old-growth northern hardwood forest will be added to George Crosby Manitou State Park in Lake County. Finally, three-quarters of a mile of corridor will be acquired for the Mill Towns State Trail that will allow connection of the Cannon Valley Trail and Lake Byllesby County Park near Cannon Falls. When completed, the trail will run between Cannon Falls and Faribault.

The Metropolitan Council will use this funding to help add approximately 225 acres of land to existing metropolitan regional parks. Priority will be given to shoreland, land with important natural resources connections, and land containing unique natural resources. The appropriation must be matched by at least $600,000 from non-state sources.

Prior to European settlement, more than 18 million acres of prairie covered Minnesota. Now less than 1 percent remains. This Department of Natural Resources project seeks to protect remaining prairie in several ways. The first is a new assessment of approximately 2,900 prairie sites first identified over fifteen years ago. Second, private landowners will be offered consultations and workshops on prairie management, along with the opportunity to participate in prairie stewardship plans. Third, threatened prairies will benefit from removal of encroaching woody plants (3,600 acres), removal of exotic species (550 acres), prescribed burns (3,000 acres), and native seed harvest and restoration (130 acres).  Finally, approximately 100 acres of prairie will be acquired as Scientific and Natural areas while another 50 acres will be protected through the acquisition of conservation easements.

The Minnesota River Valley contains many rare or even unique natural and geological features. The Southwest Initiative Foundation will lead a multi-year project to acquire natural areas along the river valley between Upper Sioux Agency State Park near Granite Falls and Fort Ridgley State Park south of Fairfax. 

Wright County and the City of Monticello will be working towards acquiring 1,200 acres for a regional park on the Bertram Chain of Lakes in the City of Monticello and Monticello Township. The Trust Fund contribution will be matched by equal amounts from the county and city.

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/snas
About 180 acres of high quality native habitat will be acquired and designated as Scientific and Natural areas. The Department of Natural Resources’ Scientific and Natural Area program aims to ensure that no single rare natural feature disappears from any region of the state through the preservation of land for scientific study and public education. Currently the program manages more than 140 areas encompassing over 180,000 acres.

The Pollution Control Agency will provide grants to high schools, colleges, and universities to develop and implement plans to reduce carbon emissions. Through this three-year project, students, technical experts, teachers, and administrators will first assess a school’s emission of greenhouse gases and then develop an action plan to reduce the emissions. Priority will be given to schools with high energy-savings opportunities, schools with proven environmental leadership, and schools with active student leaders.

Native prairie grasses have the potential to play an important role in the production of ethanol that can be used as an alternative fuel, but little is known about the best ways to “farm” these grasses while at the same time maintaining quality wildlife habitat. The University of Minnesota will establish test plots throughout the state to determine the best practices for managing this new fuel source.

The common carp is the most damaging non-native invasive fish in many Minnesota lakes. Previous Trust Fund grants have allowed University of Minnesota researchers to learn that carp are most susceptible to control efforts in their first year of life. This project will allow researchers to test several methods of exploiting this weakness to control carp populations. Among these methods are steps to protect the populations of fish that prey on young carp, the use of food odors or pheromones, and the use of acoustic barriers to restrict movement of carp between lakes.

The Department of Natural Resources will update the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services’ wetlands inventory data for Minnesota. The department will work with University of Minnesota researchers to develop high quality, cost effective and reliable mapping methods and will acquire high resolution infrared aerial photographs of the entire state as the first steps in this seven year project.

The purchase of conservation easements—restrictions on land use that protect natural features while keeping land in private ownership—has proven to be an effective means to protect land at a far lower cost than state ownership. Easements are currently managed through eight different programs in the Department of Natural Resources, but no central inventory of all the state’s easements exists. Without such an inventory, the monitoring of easements and enforcement of their terms is difficult. This project aims to develop an inventory of easements and eventually develop a plan for their administration.

Forest fragmentation—the division of large areas of forest into small parcels and their subsequent sale—limits public access for recreational activities and harms wildlife and natural resources. This grant will allow the Department of Natural Resources to establish a revolving fund to address this issue. The department will buy forest land of significant natural resource value adjacent to land it already manages. At the same time, they will replenish the fund by selling state-owned land that is isolated, difficult to manage, or has less public benefit than the land being acquired. 

The Vermillion River flows more than 50 miles through Scott, Dakota and Goodhue counties on its way to the Mississippi and has a watershed of 372 square miles, making it the largest watershed in the Twin Cities metropolitan area. More than 50 miles of the river and its tributary streams are capable of supporting trout populations, a rare feature in the metro area. Yet population in the watershed grew by 47 percent from 1990 to 2000 alone, and the resulting development threatens the quality of the river and surrounding habitat. This appropriation will allow Dakota County to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to protect water quality, wildlife habitat, and recreational opportunities in the Vermillion River watershed.

The protection of our water, farmland, and wildlife habitat often requires detailed knowledge of the condition and composition of soils. Soil data for much of the state has already been mapped and made available through the Internet. This grant, when combined with federal and local funds, will fund surveys of the soil in Cook, Crow Wing, Isanti, Koochiching, Lake, Pine and St. Louis counties.

Through this project the Minnesota Department of Agriculture will be able to acquire the equipment needed to analyze pesticide contamination in Minnesota’s groundwater and drinking water. 

The University of Minnesota’s Bell Museum of Natural History will develop a television documentary series on the waters of Minnesota.  The show will help viewers understand Minnesota’s water resources, explore current issues faced by our water supply, and see stories of successful conservation and restoration.  The first episode, focusing on the Upper Mississippi watershed, will tentatively air in the late spring or early summer of 2010.

The Avon Hills landscape, located in Stearns County, encompasses approximately 80 square miles in Avon, Saint Joseph, Collegeville, and Saint Wendel townships. Its location near St. Cloud and I-94 has threatened the landscape with urban sprawl detrimental to vegetation, wildlife, and other features. Using this grant, Saint John’s University will work with local governments, landowners, environmental groups and others to create and implement a plan to permanently protect this landscape.

Biofuels will likely be an important part of Minnesota’s energy future, but increasing concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have uncertain consequences for the crops used to manufacture these fuels. The University of Minnesota will create experimental farm plots with high CO2 concentrations  at the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Center in Isanti County. Additional experiments will be conducted near Cloquet and Ely to determine the potential effects of climate change on boreal forests.

New energy resources (such as biofuels), the increased demand for renewable energy, demographic change and climate change will all affect Minnesota’s water resources. The University of Minnesota will model future water supply and the demand for water under different scenarios of ethanol production, agricultural land use, demographic growth and climate change to reveal areas of potential water scarcity.

Audubon Minnesota and the Natural Resources Research Institute of the University of Minnesota-Duluth will use this grant to initiate a six-year effort to document the breeding distribution of all species of birds in Minnesota.  Upon completion of the project, both a book and an interactive on-line atlas will be made available. 

Over half of Minnesota’s original wetlands have been lost to development, to the detriment of wildlife and water quality. Many of the lost wetlands have the potential to be restored. Ducks Unlimited will use aerial color infrared photographs to identify drained wetlands that can potentially be restored in 11 southwestern Minnesota counties.

Early European settlement and agricultural practices from the 1850s to the 1930s led to wide scale erosion, flooding and altering of streams and valleys in southeast Minnesota, inundating hundreds of miles of clean coldwater creeks and streams. While farming practices have improved, many streams still suffer from the practices of the past. Trout Unlimited will conduct eight showcase stream restoration projects on more than six miles of southeastern Minnesota streams that will serve as models for future restorations.  Restoration targets include the Cannon River in Dakota and Goodhue counties, Hay Creek in Goodhue County, the Zumbro River in Wabasha County, Mill Creek in Olmsted County, the Whitewater River in Winona County, the Root River in Fillmore County, and the Winnebago River in Houston County.

The Department of Natural Resources will offer two competitive grants to local governments that may lead to programs providing incentives for proper management of lake and river shores.

Easements—voluntary agreements between governments and landowners that restrict ways in which land may be used or developed—are a proven method for promoting conservation while leaving land in private hands. The Board of Water and Soil Resources and local Soil and Water Conservation Districts have long used easements as a conservation tool, and this program will help the Board and local districts carry out oversight, monitoring and inspection of their easements.

The success of the state trail system has led to the creation of county trails that link to state trails and celebrate regional environmental and cultural assets.  However, most rural counties lack the planning and design resources and the funding that would move a county trail system forward. The University of Minnesota’s Center for Changing Landscapes will work with local governments to create trail systems in Brown, Lyon, Redwood and Renville counties.

Public/private partnerships are an important and effective way to achieve the state’s strategic environmental protection goals. Matching state resources with other public and private resources can multiply the investment and the impact while encouraging people to get involved in protecting the environment and providing opportunities for education. The Department of Natural Resources will provide six “Conservation Partners” grants for projects relating to habitat preservation and improvement and three “Environmental Partnership” grants for a variety of projects to help protect and enhance the natural environment.

The Department of Natural Resources and Cass County will cooperate on a program to identify the most ecologically sensitive lake shorelines and develop zoning programs to protect the shoreline and water quality.

Accurate information on the frequency and intensity of rainfall is critical for the design of storm water sewer systems, water treatment facilities, and roads, yet Minnesota’s rainfall was last evaluated for these purposes in 1961 using what is now considered crude methodology. The Pollution Control Agency is part of a multi-state effort led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to update rainfall information.

The University of Minnesota’s Raptor Center will lead this effort to consolidate data on birds treated at Minnesota wildlife hospitals in order to better monitor the extent of wildlife disease.

The Martin County Soil and Water Conservation District will use this grant to reestablish native prairie plants on county land protected through conservation easements. The focus will be on plants that are rare or whose populations are in decline. Owners of the property on which the easements are located will be required to allow future seed harvests to further increase plant populations.

Riparian environments consist of the plants and wildlife bordering rivers and streams. They serve as a buffer between the water and the surrounding land, protecting water quality, helping to control floods, and providing valuable wildlife habitat. But in much of Minnesota, native riparian plants have been replaced by cropland to the detriment of water quality and wildlife populations. The Whitewater Joint Powers Board will assess the status of riparian land in ten southeast Minnesota counties and identify those areas where restoration of native habitat would produce the greatest benefit. They will also survey the owners of the land adjoining streams and rivers to identify both the benefits and barriers of restoration, and recommend marketing strategies to encourage restoration and protection of riparian lands.

The Minnesota Recreation and Park Association will work to encourage land managers and recreation professionals to share information and work together to protect and restore prairie areas throughout the state. The Association will begin by creating two demonstration projects (one in the Twin Cities area and one in western Minnesota) to identify best management practices. They will then conduct at least three workshops around the state to exchange information and convey lessons from the demonstration projects.