Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program

Private forestlands are facing enormous development pressures in communities across America, with more than 40 million acres projected to see increased housing development by 2030, according to the U.S. Forest Service

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Description

Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program

Empowering Communities for Forest Conservation

Why was the Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program established?

Private forestlands are facing enormous development pressures in communities across America, with more than 40 million acres projected to see increased housing development by 2030, according to the U.S. Forest Service. These threatened forestlands are often needed for essential community purposes, including water supply protection, the timber-based economy, wildlife, and recreational opportunities, including hunting and angling. Many affected communities are responding to this challenge by purchasing critical forestland tracts as new community forests when they come up for sale and likely subdivision. However, communities often lack the necessary financial capacity and technical expertise to make this highly attractive investment. The new grant program will give communities matching funding to help purchase these areas and technical assistance through state forestry agencies to help implement outstanding forest management.

How will the program work?

The Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program will provide 50-50 matching funds to help local governments, tribes, and non-profit organizations acquire forest areas that are economically, culturally, and environmentally important to that locality and threatened by development. Congress will appropriate funding for the new program each year to the level of such sums as shall be necessary. Once each fiscal year has begun, the U.S. Forest Service will circulate a national request for proposals. Proposals will be submitted through state foresters, with the final allocation decisions made by the U.S. Forest Service. Up to ten percent of program funds will be set aside each year to enable state forestry agencies to provide technical assistance for each community that receives a grant. With this state forester assistance, each community and non-profit receiving a grant will be expected to develop and implement a forest management plan that is crafted with community input.

How is the program different from Forest Legacy?

The Forest Legacy Program has been a highly effective tool to help states maintain large rural working forestlands, primarily through conservation easements on private industrial forest parcels. The purpose and guidelines of Forest Legacy have very rarely enabled community-oriented forest projects to gain support, and do not require landowners to establish any direct community connections through projects it funds. The Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program instead provides federal grants directly to local governments and non-profits exclusively for full fee acquisition, not conservation easements, and the programs criteria are built around evaluation of a projects community impact even above its natural resource value. As part of this community focus, the new program requires public access and active community engagement in forest planning for parcels. The program also emphasizes opportunities for vocational-technical education in forestry and other forest-based education programs as well as active demonstration sites for model forest stewardship to educate private landowners about forest management.

How would this program affect local tax rolls?

While community forests are usually taken off the tax rolls in the host community, the net financial return from community forests is almost always higher than from land that has been subdivided and developed, requiring expensive new municipal services like schools and roads. In other cases the management efficiencies provide the financial payoff: in the checkerboard federal holdings of the West, recent community purchase of private in-holding areas that were targets of new development has helped reduce federal fire fighting costs in places like Montanas Swan Valley. Many community forests, like the Goshen Town Forest in Vermont and Arcata Town Forest in California, add to this positive balance by returning significant dollars directly to town budgets through timber harvest. The Goshen Town Forest has returned more than $1000 per resident and provided wood for town projects. The Arcata Town Forest averages $500,000-700,000 annually in timber receipts. Perhaps most importantly, no community will ever be forced to use this program, so a community would only be expected to pursue a grant if it were to conclude that the net financial and other community benefits of the project would outweigh potential loss of tax revenue.

Who supports the program?

The program was included in the platform of the Forests in the Farm Bill Coalition, a diverse national alliance of forest, forestry, landowner, industry, and wildlife groups. Dozens of national, state and local conservation and forestry groups also signed an endorsement letter in support of this important new program. Sporting federations across the country signed an endorsement letter for the program, including hunters and anglers from the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, Florida Wildlife Federation, Georgia Wildlife Federation, Izaak Walton League of AmericaNational, Izaak Walton League of AmericaIowa Division, Minnesota Conservation Federation, Mississippi Wildlife Federation, National Wildlife Federation, New Jersey State Federation of Sportsmens Clubs, New York State Conservation Council, South Carolina Wildlife Federation, Texas Conservation Alliance, Vermont Federation of Sportsmens Clubs, and Wildlife Mississippi.

For additional questions, please contact:

Jad Daley
The Trust for Public Land
Montpelier, VT
802.223.1373 X14

Cecilia Clavet
The Wilderness Society
Washington, DC
202.429.2663

Laura Schweitzer
American Forests
Washington, DC
202.737.1944 X219

Thanks to Bill Samal and Forestry Focus for passing this along!

Additional Information

Category: Forestry>Forest Stewardship

Region: Montana

Ad Running: 9/11/2008-9/11/2010

Ad Posted: 9/11/2008 4:04:21 PM

Ad Viewed: 1043 times

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