Minnesota's population is becoming rapidly urbanized. By the year 2000, over 75 percent of the state's population lived in the 11 counties that make up the large Twin Cities metropolitan area. The majority of those Minnesotans are two or three generations removed from a rural landscape. Further, the greatest percentage of population increase in the metro area will have emigrated from states other than Minnesota, especially from other cities. This is a historical shift in Minnesota demographics. Until the 1960s, Minnesota was considered a rural state with a balance between rural and urban populations. Shifts in population from rural to urban areas occurred slowly within state boundaries. Minnesotans remained familiar with rural lifestyles of both farm and forest.

Minnesotans today are less familiar with rural life and forests in particular. Yet, the state continues to ask its people to make decisions that affect the health of the forest ecosystems and the forest-based economy. Minnesotans purchase forest products daily, elect officials to make policy decisions on forest use, recreate in the forest lands and seek aesthetic pleasure and enhanced quality of life from the state's forests. All this is done without a knowledge base about forests. Conflicts in forest use-based on feelings and not knowledge-occur in Minnesota frequently.

Forests can accommodate many of our society's economic, recreational and aesthetic needs to support a good quality of life for us and for Minnesotans to come. Must we draw a balance between competing forces? Who can direct and maintain that balance? You can-we all can.

We manage the forests and determine forest outcomes by how we purchase forest-based products: lumber, paper, cardboard, newspapers, magazines, and furniture. We manage forests by how we use the forests in our recreational activities and we manage forests by how we feel about them, their use and our need for areas of solitude. Further, we manage forests when we vote for our government representatives.

Our job as Minnesotans is to become better educated about of what's going on in our forests and upon the land. Keep pace with articles in newspapers, magazines and the electronic media. Visit with elected officials and let them know how you feel about the issues.