Dennis Anderson: Overhauling conservation in Minnesota should be Job 1 for next governor

MINNEAPOLIS - At Game Fair in August, a debate is planned for gubernatorial candidates, and the hope among those concerned about Minnesota's woods, waters, fields and wild critters is that the gathering isn't a waste of time.

That's been the case sometimes previously, as past candidates for the state's highest office have either shown ignorance about the importance of conservation in Minnesota, or worse, they've used the occasion to promise a lot but ultimately, once in office, deliver very little.

Curious this year will be the appearance - or not - of Amy Klobuchar, who has had a booth at Game Fair for as long as anyone can remember. A small booth, yes, and she's not often in it. There's literature there, and perhaps a lapel button or brochure. This year she'll need more than that if she shows up for the debate, organized by Outdoor News.

Results of a recent statewide poll have Klobuchar as the favored gubernatorial candidate among those who seek the office. Many hunters and anglers see this as a win, citing her support in the U.S. Senate on important issues, wetland and prairie conservation among them. Environmentalists, whose Minnesota agendas at times differ from those of hunters and anglers, are even more firmly entrenched in Klobuchar's camp.

Already those factions are jockeying in an attempt to influence Klobuchar on her naming of a Department of Natural Resources commissioner. A big deal is often made of this appointment. But Minnesota's DNR boss is more figurehead than action figure, beholden less to the welfare of trees and lakes, rivers and grasslands, than to the governor and legislators, who by turns sign the commissioner's check and tie her - or his - hands.

Only a handful of states are governed by similar charades. Some 40 states instead have citizen-led fish and wildlife commissions, or conservation commissions, that meet monthly to set conservation policy for their natural resources departments. In some cases they also hire and fire leaders of those departments. In all instances, at their meetings, they provide a venue for everyday Joes and Josephines to be heard on fish, wildlife and other resource issues that matter to them - and as importantly, matter to their children and their children's children.

Which suggests a good first question at Game Fair for the candidates: What do you want the state to look like in 20 years? Or 40 years - and beyond?

Will the DNR's present-day harvests of the state's northern forests result not only in the loss of wildlife winter cover, but less habitat for deer, moose and ruffed grouse? Will wetland drainage, which continues unabated in Minnesota, by then ensure the diminishment, or outright loss, of wildlife that depend on these places? Will remotely controlled fishing lures by then guarantee limits for everyone? Will southern Minnesota wells tainted by agricultural runoff by then also be found in central Minnesota, and from there farther north?

Some years ago, at the DNR's annual roundtable, attended by about 300 of the agency's stakeholders, I raised my hand during a question-and-answer session.

"Is the DNR in the conservation business?" I asked then-DNR Commissioner Tom Landwehr.

"Yes," Landwehr said.

"Then why," I said, "doesn't the DNR place billboards throughout the state, and use other media, to urge landowners not to drain wetlands?"

My point was that the DNR could positively affect public opinion on conservation the same way government changed attitudes about smoking and wearing seatbelts. Shouldn't informing the public about the importance of conservation be part of the DNR's job?

Paraphrasing, Landwehr said, "That's not what we do."

Unsaid in the exchange was the obvious. As currently constructed - with the governor and legislators as the DNR's sole bosses and holders of its purse strings - the agency is less in the business of resource conservation than in the business of resource distribution.

Six ducks for waterfowlers, a similar number of walleyes for anglers, a slap on the wrist for river drainers - you get the idea.

Klobuchar has said she wants to be a transformational governor whose top priority is fighting fraud. But the latter can be measured in acts of omission as well as commission. Is it fraud for the DNR to resist installation of an invasive carp barrier in the Mississippi River? To allow the timber industry to cut trees on wildlife areas without consulting wildlife managers? To give farmers a pass when they illegally drain wetlands and siphon a creek of its water?

Establishment of a conservation commission would be popular among the vast majority of Minnesotans, who for generations have pressed their collective nose against impenetrable glass, watching, oftentimes, as state resources are peddled to those with the most political influence.

The next governor could do Minnesota a favor by establishing a Minnesota Conservation Commission to advise the DNR on policy. This wouldn't require legislative approval, and the bipartisan legwork justifying such a panel has been done. A blue ribbon panel created by Gov. Tim Pawlenty in 2007 confirmed a citizens conservation commission is the best way to direct Minnesota conservation.

Perhaps such a commission will someday become more than advisory.

Perhaps not.

Either way, the overwhelming majority of Minnesota voters who embedded the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Act in the Minnesota Constitution in 2008, and who in 2024 renewed lottery-money support for the environment, would back the idea.

Let's see what Klobuchar and the other candidates say at Game Fair.

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