Media Contacts
Please direct media inquiries to:
Minnesota Program Strengths
The state of Minnesota offers a variety of incentive programs for landowners interested in conservation. The strengths of the programs are identified below in terms of the ten criteria established by Defenders of Wildlife for an effective incentive program. Several key conservation programs in the state are also highlighted and assessed using the effectiveness criteria.
Minnesota has a variety of incentive programs that are effective in conserving habitat across the state. There are several unique qualities that characterize Minnesota's incentives programs:
Biological Surveys
The Minnesota County Biological Survey is a program initiated in 1987 to identify significant natural areas in the state and to collect and interpret data on the distribution and ecology of rare plants, rare animals, and native plant communities. This extensive inventory provides detailed maps of Minnesota's natural resources and a Rare Features Database with over 14,000 records of rare plants and animals.
As of 2004, 60 of Minnesota's 87 counties had been surveyed with more county surveys in progress and proposed to be surveyed. At the time of this writing, no plans have been made to revisit surveyed counties in the future. The program was started not only as a way to provide information about Minnesota's native habitats, but also to serve as a benchmark for comparison of the effects of resource management activities in the state. The surveys provide ecological information to Minnesota's citizens, leaders, and policy makers.
How Survey Data Is Used
The Minnesota County Biological Survey identified the Hastings Sand Coulee Prairie in Dakota County as one of the most biologically important sites in the county. As a result, the Friends of the Mississippi River worked cooperatively with seven private landowners to prepare a prairie stewardship plan as part of the Department of Natural Resource's Prairie Stewardship Program.
Other programs such as the Landowner Incentives Program and Reinvest in Minnesota use the data to identify priorities for conservation.
Past data and high priority recommendations from the surveys have also been used to develop benchmarks for lake habitat health and to establish the new 35,000 acre Glacial Ridge National Wildlife Refuge in the northern part of the state.
Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources (LCMR)
In 1963 the state created the Legislative Commission on Minnesota Resources as a bipartisan group to make funding recommendations to the legislature for environmental and natural resource projects. The primary funding source for the projects is the Environment and Natural Resource Trust Fund which contains revenue from the Minnesota State Lottery.
The commission is made up of 20 Minnesota House and Senate members and is advised by an 11-member, Governor-appointed Citizen Advisory Committee. Together, they assess the state's natural resources and identify its most important issues and needs. The Legislative Commission then adopts a Strategic Plan to address these needs which it presents to the Minnesota legislature. This process occurs over a two-year period of time.
On odd-numbered years, the Commission assesses the status of the state's resources by conducting site visits across the state, talking with professionals, and soliciting input from citizens in the state. It uses this information to identify the main issues and needs of the state. Later that year, it adopts a Strategic Plan for funding priorities, and issues a Request for Proposals of projects across the state. Anyone may submit a proposal including private landowners, nonprofit organizations, school districts, local governments, colleges and universities, and state agencies.
On even-numbered years the Legislative Commission and Citizen Advisory Committee review the proposals that have been submitted. They select projects that best fit their established funding priorities and prepare a recommendation for the Minnesota legislature.
Since the creation of this program, almost 25% of the projects funded have been aimed at improving or sustaining fish and wildlife habitat. The Legislative Commission has recommended that just over 25% of the 2005 budget go towards fish and wildlife habitat programs. Other major project categories include recreation, water resources, and agriculture and natural resources industries. The Minnesota County Biological Survey is funded each year under the land use and natural resource information category.
Conservation Strategy in Legislature
Several initiatives in the Minnesota legislature have provided an opportunity for effective habitat conservation in the state. State statutes allow wetland and prairie habitats on private land to be exempt from property taxes. Another law provides property tax breaks to landowners with managed forest stands. The state also provides covenants for the preservation of wetlands in which landowners in the program convert their land into a "wetland preservation area" that is exempt from property taxes.
In 1997, Minnesota passed legislation explicitly allowing local governments to develop and utilize Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) and Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) programs. These programs allow communities to identify areas they would like to see protected from development and direct the development elsewhere. Landowners implementing conservation practices are compensated for their efforts.
A bill proposed for the 2005 legislative session sought to institute a state tax incentive proposal called "Blue Waters". The incentive would provide a lower property tax rate to homeowners that maintain an undeveloped lake shoreline or reestablish a developed shoreline with native vegetation.
