2007 Minnesota Statutes

89A.05 TIMBER HARVESTING AND FOREST MANAGEMENT GUIDELINES.
    Subdivision 1. Development. The council shall coordinate the development of
comprehensive timber harvesting and forest management guidelines. The guidelines must address
the water, air, soil, biotic, recreational, and aesthetic resources found in forest ecosystems by
focusing on those impacts commonly associated with applying site-level forestry practices.
The guidelines must reflect a range of practical and sound practices based on the best available
scientific information, and be integrated to minimize conflicting recommendations while being
easy to understand and implement. By June 30, 2003, the council shall review the guidelines and
identify potential revisions. If deemed necessary, the council shall update the guidelines by
June 30, 2005. Changes to the guidelines shall be peer reviewed prior to final adoption by the
council. By December 1999, the council must undertake a peer review of the recommendations
in the forest management guidelines adopted in December 1998 for protecting forest riparian
areas and seasonal ponds.
    Subd. 2. Economic considerations. Before the implementation of timber harvesting and
forest management guidelines, new site-level practices and landscape-level programs, the council
shall analyze the costs and benefits of new site-level practices and landscape-level programs.
When the analysis concludes that new landscape-level programs and site-level practices will
result in adverse economic effects, including decreased timber supply and negative effects on
tourism, opportunities to offset those effects must be explored. The council shall also:
(1) identify and quantify forest and timberland acreages that will no longer be available
for harvest; and
(2) encourage public resource agencies to provide sustainable, predictable supplies of
high-quality forest resource benefits, including timber supplies that are consistent with their
multiple mandates and diverse management objectives. These benefits should be provided by
public resource agencies in proportion to their forest land's capability to do so.
    Subd. 2a. Review. In reviewing the guidelines, the council must consider information from
forest resources, practices, compliance, and effectiveness monitoring programs of the department.
The council's recommendations relating to revisions to the forest management guidelines must be
subject to peer reviewers appointed by the council. The council must consider recommendations
of peer reviewers prior to final adoption of revisions to the guidelines.
    Subd. 3. Application. The timber harvesting and forest management guidelines are
voluntary. Prior to their actual use, the council must develop guideline implementation goals for
each major forest land ownership category. If the information developed as a result of forest
resources, practices, compliance, and effectiveness monitoring programs conducted by the
department or other information obtained by the council indicates the implementation goals for
the guidelines are not being met and the council determines significant adverse impacts are
occurring, the council shall recommend to the governor additional measures to address those
impacts. The council must incorporate the recommendations as part of the council's biennial
report required by section 89A.03, subdivision 6.
    Subd. 4. Monitoring riparian forests. The commissioner, with program advice from the
council, shall accelerate monitoring the extent and condition of riparian forests, the extent to
which harvesting occurs within riparian management zones and seasonal ponds, and the use
and effectiveness of timber harvesting and forest management guidelines applied in riparian
management zones and seasonal ponds. This information shall, to the extent possible, be
consistent with the monitoring programs identified in section 89A.07. Information gathered
on riparian forests and timber harvesting in riparian management zones and seasonal ponds
as specified in this subdivision shall be presented to the legislature by February 2001 and in
subsequent reports required in section 89A.03, subdivision 6.
History: 1995 c 220 s 82,141,142; 1995 c 263 s 12; 1996 c 351 s 1; 1999 c 231 s 118,191;
1Sp2001 c 2 s 151; 2002 c 376 s 4; 2002 c 379 art 1 s 108