County Forests
The Wisconsin County Forest Program is unique in the nation. The Department of Natural Resources oversees the program and provides technical assistance, but the counties and their county boards are charged with managing the forests. This collaboration, which has been ongoing for more than 75 years, represents one of the DNR's most valued partnerships. Also instrumental in this partnership is the Wisconsin County Forests Association (exit DNR), which represents the collective interests of all the county forests and includes all county forest administrators.
Wisconsin counties with land in County Forest Program
What are County Forests?
Wisconsin's county forests are truly municipal forests, managed by professional forestry staff of the counties with assistance from DNR foresters. Currently, there are county forests in 29 of Wisconsin's 72 counties, totaling more than 2.35 million acres. The bulk of this acreage originated from tax delinquent land that was destructively harvested during the Depression Era. Collectively, the county forests represent the state's largest public forest landholding.
Read about the history of the county forests.
Benefits of County Forests
The county forests play a vital role in deterring forest fragmentation and maintaining large blocks of land in Wisconsin. Recreation and tourism depend on this land base: With more than 6000 miles of roads and trails, the county forests are the key to connectivity of the state's renowned snowmobile, ATV and hiking trail networks. County forests are open to public hunting, fishing and camping, as well.
County forests are also extremely important to Wisconsin's forest products industry and economy. Each year, these lands generate anywhere from $20 to $25 million in timber revenues for the counties and towns. It's also estimated that these revenues create an additional economic impact of more than $17 million.
Not to be forgotten are the ecological benefits of county forests, which provide habitat for the entire array of plants and animals found in Wisconsin, including a significant number of threatened and endangered species.
Forest Management
Wisconsin's county forests are governed by the County Forest Law, which requires they be managed in a sustainable manner for multiple uses, including timber production, recreation, wildlife habitat, and watershed protection. The county forests are also required to update their forest plans every 15 years, a process that includes approval both by each forest's county board and the DNR.
The county forests are currently in the process of updating their forest plans. View the progress (PDF, 13KB) on each forest.
Forest Certification
In order to ensure Wisconsin remains competitive in the global forest products industry, the County Forest Program became third-party certified in March 2005 under the two most widely accepted forest certification standards in North America: the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Certification confirms the excellent management of our county forests and their importance to the social, ecological and economic health of Wisconsin.
View the locations and acreage of certified county forests lands in Wisconsin and read more about county forest certification.
WisFIRS
The Wisconsin Forest Inventory & Reporting System (WisFIRS) is a web-based set of tools for collecting, mapping, planning and managing forest information, or reconnaissance, at a stand level. These tools allow forest managers to plan and schedule forest treatments including site preparation, tree planting, thinning and harvests (including financial information), insect and disease treatments, etc. WisFIRS also maintains a historic record of past treatments. WisFIRS is being developed to bring together public and private land forestry data into one system for both DNR staff and partner use, particularly consulting foresters that are certified plan writers for the Managed Forest Law program.
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