2 minute read
Gateway To The North
BY DANA FULTON PORTER
Dana Fulton Porter is a publications supervisor in the DNR’s Office of Communications.
Wisconsin’s Northwoods is remarkable, a beloved region known for stunning views of mixed hardwood and coniferous forest.
While many Midwesterners only think of the forest as an area covering Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota, our “Northwoods” is actually the southern fringe of a much larger forest stretching across the northern United States and southern Canada.
Animals large and small — from moose to otters to grouse — call the region home. It also serves as a crucial migration corridor, providing stopover sites and interconnected habitat for breeding, nesting and feeding for many long-distance migratory birds.
Driving north from southern Wisconsin, you’ll travel through warmer grasslands and oaks, a “tension zone,” or climate boundary of sorts. As you arrive in the colder Northwoods, you’ll find a landscape dominated by hardwoods and conifers.
Even the smallest changes in our climate are visible on this frontier. The forest is a stage for climate change concerns like more frequent pest outbreaks — such as spongy moth, which favor dry, hot weather — or the slow and steady creep of more southern trees and wildlife into northern Wisconsin, matching the withdrawal of paper birch and spruce grouse.
While this climate adaptation plays out in our backyard, the Northwoods region also plays a key role in climate change mitigation. The vast intact forests act as a carbon sink, absorbing significant amounts of carbon dioxide, keeping it out of the atmosphere and storing the carbon in the soil, trees and future forest products.
Recognizing the ecological importance of the Northwoods and its connection to our communities, the DNR is committed to sound forest management, through methods like reforestation and sustainable logging, and will continue to protect and manage Wisconsin’s portion of the great Northwoods.
