Nearly $1 million conservation easement approved in Vilas County –

Michael A. Uihlein is a man of his word.

For more than 70 years, his family has owned about 1,250 acres of forest land in northern Wisconsin. The 90-year-old Cedarburg resident said his parents were staunch conservationists, and they wanted to keep their property in Vilas County from being broken up and developed.

“I told them, when they were still alive, that I would save that land because I did not want to see it subdivided and commercialized as many of the up north forests have had happen to them,” Uihlein said.

Now, he’s made good on that promise. On Thursday, the policymaking board for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources approved the agency’s request to purchase a nearly $1 million conservation easement from the Michael A. Uihlein Exemption Trust.

The acquisition was made possible through a roughly $600,000 grant from the federal Forest Legacy Program and more than $305,000 in last remaining funds set aside under the now-expired Knowles-Nelson Stewardship Program. The Republican-controlled Legislature did not reauthorize funding for the program in the last legislative session.

Joe Hovel said Uihlein, a longtime friend, reached out a few years ago about whether the federal program would be a good fit for protecting the property. Hovel, director of the nonprofit Northwoods Alliance, worked with Uihlein and the DNR to secure federal funding and local support for the project from the town of Land O’Lakes and Vilas County.

“This is such an excellent fit to protect two square miles of incredible forest land with all the public benefits that this project has in an area that’s so threatened with development and fragmentation,” Hovel said. “That really, truly is a big deal.”

The property will be known as the Border Lakes Legacy Forest Conservation Easement. It consists of two separate parcels that include a roughly 481-acre tract of land near Forest Lake and 771 acres surrounding Emil Lake.

The Uihlein family trust will continue to own the land, which will stay on the tax rolls. The property will also be open for hunting, trapping, hiking, fishing and cross-country skiing. It will also continue to be sustainably managed under the state’s Managed Forest Law program as it has been for roughly 30 years.

In the past 25 years, the state has seen a declining trend of large private landowners taking part in the state program, said Ron Gropp, the DNR’s Forest Legacy Program coordinator.

“They’re divesting of their ownership interests,” Gropp said. “We know that keeping these large tracts of timberland in contiguous chunks and in forest production is really important in terms of sustaining our wood products industry here in the state of Wisconsin.”

Wisconsin’s forest products industry generates about $25 billion each year and supports around 57,000 jobs, according to the DNR.

In 1990, the federal Forest Legacy Program was established to conserve forest land that’s under threat of being converted for other uses. As the Trump administration has slashed federal funding, the program has continued to enjoy bipartisan support. Wisconsin has been part of the program since 2000, protecting more than 360,000 acres statewide.

The federal grant for the conservation easement was part of around $700 million in additional funding awarded to the program under the Inflation Reduction Act. The project competed for funds with multiple states and was awarded the grant in 2024.

The property includes red and white pine, aspen and northern hardwood trees along with wetlands and meadows. The Emil Lake tract also includes nearly three miles of bike and pedestrian trails, which Hovel said are among the most scenic in the county. The trail also connects with the nationally designated Aginokak Trail.

Dan Balog, town board chairman in Land O’Lakes, said the acquisition is good for the town.

“The land being set aside such as that, it’s very picturesque and it’s quiet,” Balog said.

And it will remain that way since motorized access, such as through recreational vehicles, will be prohibited.

Hovel noted the property also spans watersheds for Lake Superior and the Wisconsin River.

“That’s another thing that makes it very, very important,” Hovel said. “We’re protecting water.”

For Uihlein, approval of the purchase fulfills his own wishes for the property and pays respect to his parents. He credited the work of friends and partners, including the DNR, to make the project a reality. The nonagenenarian hopes he may be able to travel up north for the closing of the easement acquisition, which is slated to take place in October.

“I hope we can possibly work to stop the further fragmentation and compartmentalization of our Northwoods,” Uihlein said.