A number of public and private entities celebrated their partnership in Itasca county over the weekend.

Chris Buckley has more on that story.

Landowners Forest Capital Partners, have been working with the Minnesota Forest Legacy Partnership and the Itasca County Snowmobile alliance on a conservation easement project on 80 square miles of forestland in the Koochiching-Washington forest.

Saturday morning the snowmobile club showed riders the miles of trails the public will now have permanent access to, thanks to an agreement with landowner Forest Capital Partners and several state agencies.

"It's 300,thousand acres that we bought in 2005, and we just decided this was a good partnership between the DNR and the forest legacy group.

" They've agreed to work with this concept of a working forest, so they retain ownership of the land, and for a price, which is what the state and the private entities have come up with money for, to purchase away the right to development, so these lands will never be developed and can be used for hunting, hiking, berry picking and it's good for wildlife."

"Our goal is to get forestland protected in Northern Minnesota, so we can all enjoy it, use it for recreational purposes, make sure we're pulling timber off it, and protect the habitat at the same time."
Snowmobile alliance founder Elmer Cone organized the ride to celebrate the partnership and Arctic Cat provided additional sleds and gear.

"We've always looked at how are we going to protect our trail system, so they don't get taken away when theres a sale, and what's really amazing is this agreement is forever."

"We're here to support the snowmobile club, because without them the trails wouldn't be here, so we try to help them out as much as possible."
The hope is to keep protecting the states one million plus acres of commercial forestland.

"we've been working together in a public/private partnership to raise 26 million dollars to protect up to 75 thousand acres just as an initial project."