Land Bank Transactions

History

Winding River through Wetlands and Forest


The majority of lands we currently hold in trust today are a patchwork of tracts remaining from the 1850 Swamp Land Grant. Most of the original granted lands were sold over 100 years ago. Consolidating our holdings while enhancing public access and overall timber asset value is critically important to our work, and has increased management efficiencies, public access and timber revenue potential while increasing the value of existing trust lands.

All School Trust Lands are open to the public for hunting, fishing, trapping and other forms of public recreation. Some School Trust Lands, however, are surrounded by private property and we urge visitors to respect private property rights by requesting permission to cross private lands to access them. For information on how to access School Trust Lands, contact our Forest Supervisor.

Land Bank Authority Granted

Signing ceremony of the Land Bank Legislation 
In April 2006, the Legislature unanimously approved “land bank” legislation to enhance our ability to implement the Board approved consolidation plan. For the first time in our history, we were granted authority to “bank” proceeds from land sales for future acquisition. The Land Bank law applied several important conditions to the program:

  • BCPL land ownership can not exceed the 77,844 acre cap.
  • Land purchases must increase timber management efficiencies or improve public access.
Land bank authority provides much greater flexibility to:

  • Manage the land more efficiently.
  • Improve public access for hunting, fishing and recreation.
  • Increase timber revenue.
  • Increase value of School Trust lands.
  • Prevent forest fragmentation.
View a map of School Trust Land total acres by countyPDF icon indicating link will open a PDF file in a new tab before and after Land Bank.

Land Bank Sales and Purchases

Since the inception of the Land Bank Program in 2006 through August 2025 BCPL has:

  • Sold 18,633.43 acres,
  • Purchased 16,825.25 acres
  • Exchanged -1,710.54 net acres (6,675.97 acres in low value land in exchanged for 4,965.43 acres in higher value land).
  • Increased productive timber base by a total of 27%.
  • Maintained almost exactly the same acreage and percent of lands accessible to the public.
This realignment has increased the value of School Trust Lands significantly. It has also greatly increased our ability to generate future timber revenues. BCPL now harvests about 33% more timber than before Land Bank due to a larger timber base and greater management efficiencies.

In 2009 the BCPL began the process of offering for sale its isolated, unproductive tracts to private parties by sealed bid. An independent appraisal of those lands is conducted prior to offering the parcels for sale. Criteria for evaluating potential land acquisitions include: the potential for good timber production, ownership of the parcel provides improved public access, and whether the parcel blocks well with existing Trust Lands, thus improving timber management efficiency.

Land Bank Consolidation Zone

Dashed outline of BCPL's consolidation zone. 
BCPL has worked hard to build larger blocks of productive timberland to make it easier to manage. Having 2,000 scattered parcels across the Northern Part of Wisconsin had left our small staff with an almost impossible management mission. It was hard enough to visit all those parcels, much less manage them. We are almost halfway done, but it is already evident that we have moved the needle on increased revenue production and cost containment.

We have significantly reduced the number of small tracts (<120 acres) that the staff has to manage. A 2025 analysis showed that small tracts have dropped from 493 to 297 (23,896 down to 13,185 total acres) . We have also increased the number and size of our largest tracts (>1280 acres) from 7 to 10 (17,185 up to 33,955 total acres). Click to view the Total acres and Number of ParcelsPDF icon indicating link will open a PDF file in a new tab per block size as of October 20, 2025.