Community-Managed Public Forest in the Keweenaw Heartlands

To understand the path that led to this important milestone, it begins near the tip of the Keweenaw Peninsula where the 32,400-acre Keweenaw Heartlands forest contains more than 37 miles of rivers and streams, 4,500 acres of wetlands, and 79 miles of motorized and non-motorized trails.

It had been in private, corporate ownership for many decades until its previous owner—an asset management firm—decided to divest the property in 2021. Publicly accessible for generations, community members feared that its sale would result in the land being fragmented and closed to public access for activities like hunting, fishing, hiking, birding, skiing, and riding mountain bikes, snowmobiles and ORVs. Many local residents turned to the State of Michigan asking leaders to secure the property.

During 2021 and 2022, The Nature Conservancy conducted 58 interviews with community leaders in the Keweenaw Peninsula, analyzed over 1,850 online survey responses from the region, state and across the US, and met multiple times with local and state elected officials and leadership of the Michigan DNR.

As a result of all input, TNC concluded we could purchase the property as an interim owner while we worked with the local community and the State of Michigan to develop a long-term sustainable, locally responsive structure for the governance and management of the property that would meet the needs of the land itself and the community. In late 2022, TNC purchased the Heartlands.

Making the community management model possible

The local governance model envisioned by the community did not yet exist when TNC began managing the land. Through the hard, consistent work of countless planning meetings, local community members and organizations worked with TNC, the Michigan DNR, and elected representatives to envision the model and introduce the legislation that would authorize it under state law.

“This legislation makes significant improvements in how Michigan residents and their communities can manage their forests and their futures,” said Rich Bowman, director of external affairs for The Nature Conservancy in Michigan. “These new measures will have immediate positive impact on the Keweenaw Heartlands effort, providing a path for local decision-making on approximately 21,000 acres of future, public community forest.”

There is still much to do. Once elected and sworn in, the members of the authority will need to do the administrative work of setting up this inaugural board, and then there is the enduring work of actively managing the forest. To help with the authority’s startup operations, the Keweenaw Community Foundation has established the Keweenaw Heartlands Forest Fund.

What's next? 

In the future, other communities now have the opportunity—and may need—to follow the same blueprint.

In the 1990s and 2000s, tens of millions of acres of forest land across the Northwoods transferred from industrial timber owners to institutional ownership, or owners who manage forests as an investment. Institutional owners now own over 24% of all forestlands in the Upper Peninsula. With typically 10–15-year investment cycles, more large tracts of forest could be divested by these owners, putting additional Northwoods communities under the same pressures faced in Keweenaw County.

But thanks to the ongoing dedication of the Keweenaw community and its partners, a model has been established for Northwoods communities to follow, ensuring the benefits of Michigan’s forests are accessible to locals and visitors for generations to come.