Wisconsin Forest Legacy Areas

The Forest Legacy Areas must meet the National Eligibility Criteria in order to qualify for participation in the Program. Wisconsin selected and defined the Forest Legacy Areas (FLAs) in the state by applying the national criteria and then refining them further to meet the state's requirements. These criteria are explained below the map.

The Northern Forest FLA

The West Central and Central Sands FLA

The Baraboo Hills FLA

The Kettle Moraine FLA

Overall Goals of the Forest Legacy Areas
Within these areas the goal of the FLA is to protect those values and attributes that led us to designate the area as environmentally important.  Specifically, these goals include:

• Maintain the ability of the forest to produce forest products on a sustainable basis.
• Maintain other traditional and non-destructive uses, protect important fish and wildlife habitat.
• Protect existing cultural resources, protect or enhance rare or unique habitats and their associated species, protect watershed, increase the amounts of continuous forest by maintaining or creating large blocks of forest protected from fragmentation.
• Create public use opportunities where appropriate.
• Reduce forest fragmentation by retaining large blocks of forest or by connecting to existing protected lands.

Protection and Maintenance of Goals
Protection and maintenance of these areas are central to the success of the program.  Therefore, tracts be protected and maintained.  In addition, the following standards will be applied when working in any of the FLAs.

• Acquisition of conservation easement is preferred to full-fee acquisitions.  However, in situations where a conservation easement is not appropriate or possible the Forest Stewardship Committee will consider recommending full-fee acquisition.
• Acquisition will be held by the State under the FLP State grant option.
• Acquire development rights on all tracts.  This would include the rights to subdivide, construct buildings, control utility right-of-way locations, and development of permanent access roads.
• No disposal of waste or hazardous materials will be allowed.
• Restrict the development of mining, drilling of mineral, sand, and gravel pits to sole use by the property owner, and to locations, and sizes, where such mining or drilling would not damage or impair water quality or other protected resource values.
• Public access is preferred for most tracts, but will not be required, especially in cases where there are rare communities or species which could be damaged by public access.  Where public access is desirable, the FSC Committee will make applicants aware that landowners who will allow non-motorized public access will receive a higher ranking than landowners who restrict their land from public access.
• All tracts where either conservation easements or fee-purchases are used will have a comprehensive, multi-source management plan developed and used.  These will be approved by the State Forester or designee.
• The management plan will identify and address all property values of significance on the property and will be updated at least every 10 years.
• All plans will contain a monitoring plan which identifies the monitoring agency, parameters to be measured and frequency of monitoring.
• All timber or forest products harvesting will be subject to a harvesting plan approved by the State Forester or designee.
• Water quality best management practices (BMPs) will be applied to all practices initiated on the property.