Statewide Forest Plan

Completed in 2004, Wisconsin's latest Statewide Forest Plan articulates a common vision for the state's forest resources and a framework for achieving that vision. It incorporates the full range of trends and issues affecting Wisconsin's forests and their ecological, economic and social implications. Most importantly, the plan is a call to all interested parties to address the challenges facing Wisconsin's forests both now and in the future.

Planning Process

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources' Division of Forestry coordinated the three-year planning process in collaboration with local, state and federal agencies, other private and public sector partners, and many individual citizens. This collaborative approach found its basis in the belief that input from those interested in and affected by Wisconsin forests was vital to the plan's development.

Goals, and Trends and Issues

The Statewide Forest Plan offers a vision for Wisconsin's forests based on five goals:

• Forest health and protection
• Forest diversity
• Forest productivity
• Forest conservation and stewardship
• Forest recreation

These five goals also provided a starting point for identifying the most important trends and issues facing Wisconsin's forests now and in the future. The 2004 Statewide Forest Plan ultimately described 52 such items, along with their ecological, economic, and social implications.

Access a searchable directory of the plan's trends and issues, and the objectives and actions for addressing them.

Final Plan

An overview document is available that concisely describes the planning process, the contents of the 2004 Statewide Forest Plan, and the vision for implementing it.

In addition, the final plan is published electronically in a format that allows users to search the contents by goals, trends and issues, or keywords. From this page, visitors may also download documents related to the Statewide Forest Plan, and the final plan itself.

Stay Informed

With implementation of the plan now being led by the Wisconsin Council on Forestry, we invite all citizens who care about our forest resources to stay informed. We also hope people will take part in implementing the plan, as well as in future assessments and planning processes associated with updating and maintaining it. If you want to staying informed about the progress of the Statewide Forest Plan, please visit the Wisconsin Council on Forestry Web site: www.wisconsinforestry.org.