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UP Land Sale May Put Public Access in Peril

Posted on: Friday, 23 September 2005, 15:00 CDT

Sep. 23--More than 1.1 million acres of publicly accessible Upper Peninsula forest is for sale -- a potential threat to hiking, berry picking, snowmobiling and off-road vehicle use on land cherished by generations of tourists and Yoopers.

The deals involve an area 12 times larger than the city of Detroit, dwarfing the 2002 sale of 390,000 acres of UP timberland. That deal spurred an unprecedented alliance between the state and the Nature Conservancy to buy a $58-million conservation easement that now protects most of that acreage from development and ensures public access.

The current real estate will be sold in two blocks -- more than 650,000 acres owned by Escanaba Timber (formerly MeadWestvaco) that went on the market in August and 452,000 acres that are quietly being shopped this month by International Paper.

New owners could reverse longstanding informal arrangements that allow snowmobile access, hiking, off-road vehicles, and in some cases camping on the lands. Such changes would erode years of unfettered access to large private land tracts, changing the unique aura of the UP as a place of wide-open freedom to roam and dream.

"All of this corporate land has kind of been our backyard," said Charles Eshbach, 62, of Houghton, who has hunted, trapped, snowshoed and fished on the lands up for sale. "There were no rules or signs, and no way to distinguish when you cross from my 40" acres "to corporate land. This is part of chipping away at that."

The Nature Conservancy and Gov. Jennifer Granholm have begun discussing an effort to protect part of the 1.1 million acres, said Garret Johnson, chief conservation officer for the conservancy's Michigan chapter.

A Granholm spokeswoman said the governor has spoken directly with at least one of the timber companies, urging them to consider a conservation easement similar to the pact that protects 271,000 acres of land sold to Forestland Group LLC in 2002. That agreement pays Forestland to sign away rights to development and ensures public access to the land for fishing, hunting, hiking and snowmobiling. The easement stays with the acreage when it is sold.

"She would like the Forestland Group agreement to serve as a guide as to how we would handle these," said Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd.

But that pact was expensive -- $58 million that still is being raised, including at least $16 million in state funding. Making more financial commitments may not be wise for a governor struggling to keep the state's economy above water.

"We're in the midst of a budget crisis," said Diane Katz, director of science, environment and technology for the Mackinac Center, a Midland-based free-market think tank. "We already have a number of state parks and wilderness areas that don't enjoy much access ... so I would hope to see private conservancies get together rather than the default being the government."

Time to organize such an effort may be short, and the state must be a key player in order to convince companies to play ball, environmentalists said.

"We've referred to it as a crisis, quite frankly," Johnson said Wednesday. "We have a couple of months in Michigan to get our act together if we want to protect it."

New owners almost certainly will keep most of the land in timber production for the near future because a condition of the sales will be an agreement to supply nearby mills with timber for at least several years. That will keep the land in the state's Commercial Forest program, which reduces land taxes in exchange for access by hunters and anglers, but makes no provision for other recreational pursuits.

New owners also are free to sell off prime chunks for construction of vacation homes, resorts and as hunting land for private citizens.

"There likely will be some development along some of the rivers and lakes ... some high value recreational property will be sold," said Mark Sherman, a forest manager for Escanaba Timber.

Katz said such selective development would help bolster local economies.

But others fear such fragmentation would erode a longstanding tradition of vast fence-free tracts of woodlands.

"They can unload this land to the highest bidder. The buyer sells land along the lakes and rivers for development, and beats the bejesus out of the timber," said Marvin Roberson, forest policy specialist with the Michigan chapter of the Sierra Club. "The places where you put your canoe in ... you may come up and find that it's now a 3,000-square-foot vacation home with a Ford Navigator in the driveway."

Eshbach said the 2002 sale resulted in gated roads and "No Trespassing" signs on some land not covered by the conservation easement. Other, smaller sales have resulted in similar walling off of woodlands.

"That's raised the hair on a lot of Yoopers' necks," he said. "You can't get to your favorite berry patch anymore, or your favorite fishing hole. The access is being taken way from us a little bit at a time. We've been like spoiled unruly teenagers who do whatever we want.

"It's hard for us to have someone come in and stop that."

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MWV,

Source: Detroit Free Press

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