Forest Management

Forest Resources Plan

On January 8, 2025, the Crow Wing County Board approved the Forest Resources Plan (PDF) for the Tax Forfeited lands of Crow Wing County. This plan covers the use and management of the roughly 105,000 acres of tax-forfeited lands in Crow Wing County. The plan describes the resource base and sets forth the County's strategic approach for land and resource management.

The plan serves the following purposes and benefits:

• Describes the County's forest resource, its extent, location and current condition.
• Sets forth a desired future condition to which actions are directed.
• Documents County management policies, practices and management initiatives.
• Provides the basis for improved coordination with other public and private resource managing agencies.
• Promotes continuity of management efforts over time.

Public County Land

The level of publicly owned land in Crow Wing County reflects its location at the transition zone of three ecological divisions where the amount of forested land is relatively low, where the quality of agricultural land is good, and where the demand for private land ownership has remained consistent over the years.

The public land picture in Crow Wing County is radically different than that for counties to the north and east. In Crow Wing there is no significant federal land ownership and none within a national forest. State ownership is limited-there is not enough state-owned land within the two designated state forests to warrant individual management plans for the forests. The following information highlights how this pattern of ownership varies from the rest of the north central region.

• Within the north central region as a whole, the Federal government owns 37% of the land area. The State of Minnesota owns 13%, county/city governments own 21%, and Indian tribes own 1%.