On a sunny morning this past spring, Department of Natural Resources Forester Cody Stevens found himself standing on a two-track road just north of the town of Atlanta in Michigan's northern Lower Peninsula.

Surrounding him was a 1,953-acre compartment of state forest land, covering four sections of Briley Township in Montmorency County, with which Stevens would become intimately familiar this year.

Stevens was there to inventory and review the present condition of the many forest cover types in this small corner of the Atlanta Forest Management Unit in order to determine how each type should be managed to attain the desired future condition of the forest.

In such a serene setting, Stevens asked himself, "Where to begin? What is the desired future condition? How should we manage these woods?"

The last question is of particular interest to the many users of the state forest, such as hunters, anglers, recreational trail enthusiasts and the timber industry.

As he had done in similar evaluations of other state forest compartments, Stevens decided it was best to begin with the past.

Over 150 years ago, the forests on this site were predominantly white pine and red pine, with some of the richer soils supporting a northern hardwood forest of beech, sugar maple and hemlock. The area was part of the great northern Michigan pine forest that supported the logging and lumber boom in the late 19th century. But after the lumber boom ended, the cut-over lands were unwanted and reverted to state ownership, becoming part of the state forest in the early 1900s.

Today, after some 100 years of re-growth, the present forest Stevens was seeing was dominated by three pioneer, sun-loving tree species -- aspen, oak and red pine.

Of these species, more than half of the acreage was covered by aspen.

Back in the 1970s and '80s, the DNR found itself presented with a similar question that had implications for Michigan's entire 3.9 million acres of state forest: What should be done with the mature aspen resources of the state?

The answer, of course, was to harvest it, in order to perpetuate the aspen resource for purposes of providing good habitat for species such as grouse, deer and elk, and as a source of timber for nearby oriented-strand board mills.

The impacts of this history now formed the basis for the question that Stevens was presently asking, "What to do now and why?"

"To assist Cody and other DNR foresters in answering these questions, the state forest is organized into compartments (groups of forest stands) and management areas (groups of similar compartments)," said William Sterrett, Forest Resource Management section manager for the Forest, Mineral and Fire Management Division.

Each year, DNR personnel inventory and evaluate one-tenth of the state forest. Information gathered includes the health, quality and quantity of all vegetation; wildlife and fisheries habitat and needs; archeological sites; minerals; recreational use; wildfire potential and social factors, such as proximity to roads and neighborhoods, and use on adjacent lands (public and private).

A computerized inventory system enables foresters to track the age and condition of each stand, compartment and management area of the state forest. Using this inventory data, the DNR is developing regional state forest management plans for each region of northern Michigan.

"These plans, which employ landscape-level analyses, describe the current condition, desired future condition and 10-year management objectives for the major forest cover types in each management area," Sterrett said. "They also complement the State Forest Management Plan that ensures our state-owned forests are managed in a healthy, sustainable manner."

The compartment (Compartment 47) that is under review this year in Montmorency County lies in the DNR's Thunder Bay Outwash Management Area. This section of the draft regional state forest management plan discusses the result of the management actions for aspen in the 1970s and '80s -- a large bubble of 30- to 40-year-old aspen and relatively little younger or older aspen.

When analyzing the current inventory data for Compartment 47, Stevens noted a similar trend, with more than 60 percent (671 acres) of the total acres of aspen being 30 to 40 years of age.

This characteristic sets up the possibility for a recurring boom and bust cycle of aspen timber and habitat resources, an issue that concerns DNR forest managers who are committed to the sustainable management of state forest timber and wildlife resources.

To address the problem, Stevens is applying the current objectives for aspen that are provided in the draft regional state forest management plan.

"We are proposing to harvest 223 acres of the younger aspen in order to restore balance to the number of acres in each 10-year age class," Stevens explained. "Over the long term, this will provide a more consistent and sustainable amount of aspen habitat for wildlife species and timber for the forest products industry."

Lessons from the past will be applied to help form the future of this little corner of the state forest.

More information about forest management and planning, including the proposed treatments for Compartment 47 and other areas of the Atlanta Forest Management Unit, is available under the "Forests, Land and Water" section of the DNR's Web site at www.michigan.gov/dnr.