Michigan Public Land Review Draws Praise, Little Criticism

A decade after a northern Michigan state senator questioned the purpose of holding on to the state’s vast domain of publicly owned land, the Department of Natural Resources is conducting a painstaking, county-by-county assessment aimed at consolidating those lands and managing them more efficiently. The top-to-bottom review of Michigan’s entire 4.5 million acres of open land has already yielded one important initial result: In May 2004, the DNR formally determined the boundaries for all state forests, game and wildlife areas, parks, and recreation areas. The department is now working on the review’s final stage — deciding what do with land it owns outside of those boundaries.