Management Objectives for private forest land:
  1.  Develop the forest resource into fully stocked stands of high quality timber that are appropriate to the land, to support sustained yield harvesting throughout the future. 
  2.  Increase and protect the natural diversity of the forest allowing natural succession to proceed:  Protect, restore, and develop natural communities, unique ecosystems, and habitat types.  Encourage native vegetation of all sizes to flourish in each habitat type.  Restore habitats and communities degraded by short sighted harvesting and grazing.
  3.  Establish and maintain a system of woods roads and trails for continued access to all stands for forestry work as well as recreational use. 
  4.  Produce regular income for the forest owners throughout the future.
  5.  Balance maintaining a healthy population of wildlife with limiting animal damage to natural regeneration of plant species.

The Fully Stocked Stand:  Nearly all forests in this region have been severely disturbed by man's activities.  Original forest conditions are seen in only a few small scattered  remnants.  In general, any existing natural relics will be protected from disturbance, or be carefully  managed as a fully stocked natural stand.  Oak Savannah, pine relics, remnant prairies, and wetland areas are some of the natural features that need special attention in this region.

While presettlement conditions will never return, future oriented management must understand the past and  cooperate with the natural forces of forest development to protect the future.  "A Guide to Forest Communities and Habitat Types of Central and Southern Wisconsin" by John Kotar and Timothy L. Burger provides up to date and detailed information on original forest types and the natural succession to climax species in this region.  Habitat type classification will be used in all stands to encourage the development of the appropriate forest cover for each site. 

Disturbed as well as undistrubed forest areas will be managed by allowing for the long term natural succession of a forest - in the absence of the repeated burning that occurred here in presettlement times.  This will mean a gradual shift to the more shade tolerant species, with a sugar maple and basswood forest being considered the climax timber type on nearly  all good sites.  White pine or red maple would be the eventual dominant species on a dry site.

The oak forests that cover much of our area today are not a natural or a stable forest type.  Oak forests were not a  naturally occurring community, they only sprung up after settlement 140 years ago.  Oak forests are a temporary stage of forest development that has been created by man's halting the natural prairie fires in Southern Wisconsin. Attempting to maintain an oak forest using traditional oak regeneration harvesting is not an ecologically or economically sound venture for private forest owners.  Oak forests should instead be seen as a transition step, a man caused feature that will not persist, that will eventually fade away even if great effort is expended to produce primarily oak regeneration. 

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