Private woodland owners control 5.3 million acres, or about 40%, of Minnesota's timberlands. Private woodlands are the scenic backdrop for many of Minnesota's most beautiful vistas. Private woodlands provide habitat for native wildlife as well as clean water for aquatic ecosystems and also municipal water supplies.

The decisions made by Minnesota's 150,000+ individual and family woodland owners have important impacts well beyond their properties. However, only a very small proportion of timber sales in Minnesota involve a professional forester. Minnesota is a national leader in forest stewardship plan preparation, having provided professional plans for well over a million acres of private woodland. But that's still only 20% of the land -- clearly, most woodland owners are not taking advantage of existing sources of information.

This site was created to help private woodland owners make sound, well informed woodland stewardship decisions. The purpose of the site is to help woodland owners learn how their forests work, how sustainable forest management works, and how they can acheive their forest stewardship goals with confidence and trust in the professionals with whom they work.

The site uses three primary strategies to support this purpose. First, the site provides accurate, clear, and relevant information that addresses important woodland owner questions and concerns. This information is supported by numerous links to other websites and documents, selected carefully to meet the needs of site users.

Second, the site connects woodland owners with local natural resource professionals. This process can be intimidating for some landowners, so the site makes it easy to initiate contact via email, a medium that makes it easy to opt out of an uncomfortable conversation. The site also allows the user to learn a bit about the professionals before contacting them, which can make it easier to obtain information that might be sensitive to ask about.

Finally, the site allows users to get answers to their most important questions. These questions are answered by professional foresters, educators, and other landowners -- it's an open forum. All questions and answers are archived and searchable. Questions can easily be posted anonymously.

Evaluating the site
Is the site working? How will we know? The site will be evaluated by a variety of methods. The standard measures will all be used: hit counts, visit duration, traffic on the discussion group, and so on. In addition, a random sample of site users will be asked to complete an optional survey. Early evaluations of other websites targeting woodland owners suggest that a very large proportion of site users have not previously been in contact with a professional forester.

Funding and site management
This site was developed by the University of Minnesota Extension Service in 2006. Site development was supported by a grant from the Vital Forests / Vital Communities initiative of the Blandin Foundation, based in Grand Rapids, Minnesota.

Extension educators with the University of Minnesota provide ongoing site maintenance. The site is a continual work in progress. Content is modified, questions are answered, errors are fixed, and new features are added weekly, if not daily. If you have suggestions, large or small, email the webmaster.