This year the University of Minnesota, Department of Forest Resources, published a listing of personnel employed by the 15 county land departments. As far as I know this is the first listing of county employees involved in the management of 2.5 million acres of forest land. I am surprised that the Association of County Land Commissioners never thought of publishing a complete listing of land department employees.
The number of employees —158 — is impressive when compared to the number of employees hired 40 years ago — 26. The 600 percent increase in employees over the past 40 years shows how far the counties have progressed in forest management. Forty years ago, six of the counties only hired a land commissioner. Most of the counties were augmented with 11 Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Commission foresters that were paid by the IRRR Commission. Cass County had two IRRRC foresters, Beltrami had two, Hubbard had one, who was also the designated land commissioner.
When I started working in Aitkin County in 1958 there was only the land commissioner and one person working in the forests. When I left in l980, there were five employees in the department. Now there are 13.
Today, St Louis County hires almost 40 percent of the 158 land department personnel. St. Louis County is the largest county east of the Mississippi and is equivalent in size to Delaware and Connecticut combined. It has the largest county forest — 900,000 acres — in the United States. Other counties employing 11 to 19 employees in their land departments are Koochiching, Cass, and Itasca counties.
Why was there such an increase in county land department employees the past 40 years? With the doubling in the size of Blandin, Potlatch, and Boise paper mills and the construction of four wafer board plants, demand for timber products along with the prices for timber stumpage tripled. The 1979, the Minnesota Legislature enacted the In Lieu of Tax bill that encouraged counties to keep their tax-forfeited lands. The funds received from the state are based on the number of acres owned in each county. Some of these funds are used for timber and recreational activities. Some counties are now involved in parks, public access to lakes, snowmobile and all-terrain vehicle trails, and forest certification which require more involvement of employees. The management intensity for sustaining the forest base has increased and requires detailed inventory data.
Ridlington, a member of the Society of American Foresters, is a media relations for the SAF. He was IRRRC forester in Aitkin County from l957 to l980 and district forester in Park Rapids for seven years.
