State and Federal Lawmakers Negotiate Over Wilderness and School Trust Land

State lawmakers continue to negotiate with the federal government to end a dispute over more than 87,000 acres of state forest land inside the 1.1 million acre Boundary Water Canoe Area Wilderness. The land is locked by The U.S. Forest Service Department of Agriculture land, which does not allow motorized equipment inside its wilderness area. Much of that land is held in a school trust account to benefit local students and their education but because the land is locked, state lawmakers say there is no way to use the land to gain revenue through leasing, logging or mining. Because much of the land was burned to ashes in the Pagami Creek Fire, lawmakers continue to push to find a way to trade that land for land outside the BWCA but within the Superior National Forest. To make it easier to use the land for mining and other business, lawmakers have asked to receive National Forest Land that the state already has the mineral rights to...more

Wilderness advocates propose the designation "for our children" and for "future generations" but no way will they help "the children" if wilderness is to their detriment.