Bill O’Brion, general manager with Lyme Great Lakes Timberlands, on Tuesday helps lead a tour of a proposed conservation easement in the Michigamme Highlands. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the private company are working together to create an easement on 73,000 acres in Marquette, Baraga and Iron counties. (Journal photo by Christie Mastric)

MICHIGAMME — The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is working with Lyme Great Lakes Timberlands, the owner of a large tract of land in the Michigamme Highlands, to protect it through a working forest conservation easement.

The proposed Michigamme Highlands Conservation Easement Project –spanning portions of Marquette, Baraga and Iron counties — would give the DNR easement rights while the land would remain privately owned by Lyme. The easement would ensure that the land is sustainably managed for a variety of purposes in perpetuity.

Officials from Lyme and the DNR gave two tours of the property to the public on Monday and Tuesday.

“This is a really phenomenal project that’s been several years in the works,” said

Bill O’Brion, Lyme general manager, during the Tuesday tour.

Kerry Heckman, forest land administrator with the DNR Forest Resources Division, said the DNR has applied for U.S. Forest Service Forest Legacy Program funding for a conservation easement for the 73,000-acre project.

“Basically, land ownership is like a bundle of stocks, and a conservation easement is a couple of sticks out of the bundle,” Heckman said. “So, Lyme will still own the land. It’s privately owned, but the state would acquire the rights for public access, development rights so the property is never developed, the right to protect the conservation values on the property, and to ensure that it’s managed sustainably for the forest resource.”

These, she stressed, are “forever rights” that will carry on no matter who owns the land.

“It will always be in place,” said Heckman, who pointed out that there already is public access because it’s enrolled in the Commercial Forest Act that permits hunting, fishing and trapping.

Heckman said the conservation easement would expand the public access and make it permanent, plus open the land to activities such as hiking, skiing, snowshoeing, mountain biking, snowmobiling and ATV use on designated trails identified for those uses. Camping would be allowed unless it’s on spots that are being “loved to death,” she said.

Key aspects of the project, Heckman said, habitat protection for certain species.

The Forest Legacy Program funding has not yet been awarded, she said, since it has to go through a Congressional budgeting process. However, she said the project — which currently ranks second in the country — is as “close as you can possibly get” to receiving the funding, which provides 75% of the costs. The DNR is working on other grant options for the remaining 25%.

Heckman said officials working on the easement want the public to be aware of the project now that it’s getting some traction.

O’Brion said the property is more scattered than what was desired, but said that with federal funding, an entity that doesn’t own the mineral rights cannot get funding for that part of the project, and any place with a high likelihood of mineral rights being used doesn’t qualify.

Heckman said that during research on that aspect of the project, it was determined that some of the key areas were still included because the potential for mineral extraction was negligible.

Included in the project, she said, is the peak of Mount Arvon — the highest natural peak in Michigan. Also, part of the Yellow Dog River flows through the property.

“It’s directly adjacent to the McCormick Tract and the area of the river that’s designated wild and scenic, so this project would allow us to expand those protections on the Yellow Dog River another 1.8 miles,” Heckman said.

She provided a list of the property’s attractions:

≤ 37 miles of rivers;

≤ 220 miles of perennial streams;

≤ 96 lakes and ponds;

≤ 13,600 acres of wetlands; and

≤ over 4,800 acres of white-tailed deer winter habitat.

There also is a lot of moose habitat, Heckman said, which also is a priority for protection.

“A big part of it too is that we share boundaries with federal lands, state lands, state parks, other public lands, so it’s not just the 73,000 acres,” O’Brion said. “But when you look at a landscape level, it’s actually part of a bigger protected enhanced area too.”

He emphasized that the property would be not a national park but a working forest conservation easement that supports forestry-related jobs.

“It is not preserved, hands off,” O’Brion said. “It is a forest that works and grows timber.”

During Tuesday’s tour, Lyme and DNR staff took participants on four stops along property in the proposed easement, answering questions and pointing out natural features and forestry practices along the way.

O’Brion said that it could take up to a year to finalize the easement, but Lyme is continuing business as if it already were granted.

He stressed the perpetuity aspect of the project.

“These rights are forever,” O’Brion said.