From the Duluth News Tribune, by Janna Goerdt
Daryl Peterson gently parted the leaves surrounding a sugar maple stump.
Wet but curious hikers leaned in and saw, according to Peterson, part of what makes the Magney-Snively Forest south of Duluth so special: tiny green leaves of the rare moschatel plant.
"This is part of the ecological diversity we're trying to protect," said Peterson, a field representative for the Nature Conservancy in Duluth.
Thanks to a partnership between Duluth and the Nature Conservancy, Magney-Snively's 1,800 acres of maple-basswood forest should remain protected from development and logging.
The forest is the first property to be provisionally designated under the fledgling Duluth Natural Areas Program, Peterson said. Final approval hinges on the Duluth City Council's acceptance of a forest management plan, which could happen this summer.
Members and Nature Conservancy supporters from Duluth and as far away as Minneapolis came to celebrate that partnership during a soggy Saturday hike.
What's unique, Peterson said, is the focus on protecting land for its natural value, not just for recreation.
"It's not like a park," he said. "It's more than that."
The moschatel plant is a good example. It's easy to overlook and less than showy -- but it's a part of the biological puzzle that makes up a maple-basswood forest.
Several private landowners within the forest donated their property to the city for preservation. The Nature Conservancy helped with the land transactions.
And while the land remains in public ownership -- ski and hiking trails cut through the forest -- the emphasis is on retaining ecological diversity.
On Saturday, hikers walked beneath yellow birch and past the cupped leaves of jack-in-the-pulpits. Everywhere were the new leaves of sugar maple trees.
Magney-Snively's beauty and resources make it "highly threatened" by development and logging, Peterson said.
"But here we have natural areas entwined with city and community values," he said.
Any person or group can nominate public land for preservation as long as it is ecologically, biologically or geologically significant.
The pine forests along Park Point and the St. Louis River estuary's North Bay could be future nominees for protection under the Natural Area Program, said Pat Collins, Lake Superior Coastal Program manager for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources.
