Outstanding Forest Steward Award

Howard and Edna Hong Named Minnesota's Outstanding Forest Stewards

by David Frederickson

(Reprinted courtesy of the Cook County News-Herald, December, 2002)

Howard and Edna Hong's longtime stewardship of their Hovland forest land has once again been officially recognized. At the annual convention of the Minnesota Association of Soil and Water Conservation Districts [MASWCD] in St. Paul on December 9, the Hongs were given the statewide Outstanding Forest Steward Award, cosponsored by MASWCD and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Division of Forestry. The organizations give the award "to honor landowners who have implemented innovative forestry conservation activities, demonstrated leadership, and achieved significant results in the protection of Minnesota's forest resources." Last year, the local Soil and Water District nominated the Hongs as Outstanding Conservationists for their work, then in an earlier stage; now, with replanting well along -- they've planted well over half a million trees on 560 acres, so far -- the state organizations deemed their project worthy of a statewide award.

The Soil and Water Conservation Districts were set up across the nation starting in the 1930s after the devastation of the Dust Bowl years, to address issues of soil erosion and, later, water and environmental quality. The local districts, generally one to a county, with their elected supervisors, direct the use of federal and state funds to aid projects by farmers, other private landowners, and public bodies that are intended to halt soil erosion, restore wetlands and other wildlife habitat, and protect the quality of the waters we all depend on for everything from drinking to fishing.

Cook County's Soil and Water Board dates from 1969, when water quality was added to the districts' mission. Among the founding members were Clarence Thompson and Don Finn, who are retiring this year from the board, and Alton Berglund; other current members are Don Sivertson and Wayne Hensche. They, and District Manager Rebecca Wiinanen, are the ones who nominated the Hongs for the awards for their stewardship of their bit of the Minnesota forest.

In our local boreal forests, the problems, and solutions, can be complex. For one thing, the crops -- trees -- take forty to eighty years to grow, not just a few months, as with most crops. For another, the areas involved tend to be large, and inevitably include many types of ground, often steep, often bordering rivers and lakes that themselves need protection. Yet another problem is tax laws written with normal farms and farmlands in mind, assuming payback cycles of a year or two, not decades. So it isn't easy, or cheap, to be good stewards of a forest. The Hongs are.

They've used their land carefully, minimizing their own impact by building only a few small structures and no roads, and by planting trees and otherwise doing what they can, in Howard's words, "to heal the forest."

And a lot of it needs healing. Over the years, much of the accessible land in Cook County has been cut over again and again for its valuable white pine and other conifers, often followed by wildfires through the accumulated slash and the remnant stands of young trees. The bared land hasn't held the water from rain and snow as well as forested land would, and therefore it has eroded, silting in lakes and streams; faster runoff has gouged out slopes and streams, bringing more silt more rapidly to the lakes, and ultimately to Lake Superior. Slowly the devastated forests have regenerated themselves, but with brush and tree species such as birch and popple, which have shorter lives and lower value as timber.

Several years ago, the Hongs resolved to step up their efforts to heal the forests, to restore the original species -- not as a pristine and untouched wilderness, but as well-managed, and eventually productive, timberland. That would be their legacy.

The Hongs enlisted the aid of Dave Eggen, a forester with twenty-five years' experience as a private consultant and contractor since his earlier career with the Forestry Service. In 1998, Eggen, consulting with DNR experts such as Deb Moritz, drew up a long-term stewardship plan that incorporated the Hongs' objectives and gained the endorsement and aid of the DNR. In the years since, Eggen has supervised the preparation of hundreds of acres of land and the planting of hundreds of thousands of seedlings -- red pine, white pine, spruce, tamarack, red cedar. Not all has gone well with the plantings: they, and the planters, have had to contend with drought in the summer and, in the snowless winter, exposure to killing cold. But the Hongs and their team will persevere, and, slowly, the forest will be healed and will be productive.