Land Management

Sometimes, saving a forest means cutting down a few trees. That’s what Belwin land managers were doing this winter, when approximately 100 red pines were cut from a planted stand near the Belwin Education Center. While trees have many important benefits for the environment, human health, wildlife, and more, such homogenous, human-planted plantations create an… Continue Reading On the Cutting Edge

Belwin’s work to protect the prized Valley Creek has big benefits downstream in the Wild & Scenic River it joins. Valley Creek is clean and healthy, but it really shouldn’t be. The headwaters of the cold and crystal-clear stream are found at the edge of the Twin Cities urban core. The surrounding landscape is developed… Continue Reading The St. Croix Connection

This article was first published in the winter of 2017. On the shortest day of 2016, more than 100 people came to Belwin for our first Solstice Bonfire. Great piles of buckthorn branches were burned, music was sung, stories were told and friendships—with others and with the land—were made. Spotted knapweed is an invasive species… Continue Reading When Winter Favors Summer Weeds

The land around Lake Edith in Afton is the start of the Minnesota Blufflands, a landscape comprised of prairies, oak savannas, coulees and woodlands. As the last glaciers melted 12,000 years ago, sand and gravel spewed across the landscape. Oak trees thrived on that dry soil, and regular fires kept the underbrush back while allowing… Continue Reading Belwin’s Savanna Hills: A Labor of Love