| Sissy’s
View — On
Sustainable Forest Management |
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The mission of sustainable forest management is
to use forests to meet the needs of today, while
leaving the same level of resource for future
generations. Sound familiar? Yes, it’s very
much like the premise for conserving undeveloped
land through conservation easement.
Why preserve forest and timberland? Aside
from the esthetic satisfaction of a beautiful
forest stand, connected forest corridors provide
effective wildlife habitat and migration.
Properly managed timberland protects native
plant and animal species, and the aquifer.
Forests retain and process 85% of airborne
nitrogen. They capture precipitation to slowly
soak the ground and filter runoff into streams.
They retain soil. One acre of trees absorbs as
much carbon dioxide as produced by one car
driven 26,000 miles. Timber is also Virginia’s
number one crop.
What does it take to preserve forested land?
Concerning the “who,” it requires
conscientious and forward-looking individuals,
local governments, and developers working
together to deliberately act in the interest of
conservation.
Currently, private individuals own 77% of
commercial forestland in Virginia, while many
important tracts are part of non-commercial
private holdings. Sustainable practices on
these, as well as industrial properties, can be
encouraged through combinations of good
timbering practices and use of conservation
easements to determine what happens on the land
for perpetuity. In addition, county government
application of “land use” laws to encourage
continuation of agriculture and timbering by
providing a tax incentive to keep the land in
those uses is key--particularly in the case of
numerous and/or large tracts of land.
In
the Chesapeake Bay watershed, forests are
being lost at the rate of 100 acres per day.
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Dr. Elizabeth (Sissy)
Crowther is President of Rappahannock
Community College and an NNLC Board Member
We need to deliberately diminish the
attractiveness of selling large tracts for
development. And we must create models
that demonstrate benefits of smart land
practices.
Developers have incentive and great opportunity
to conserve forested land. After all,
wooded properties increase home values as much
as 20%. Lots with mature trees or backing
on forested land have sold 50% faster than their
lawned counterparts. Developments which
cluster the housing onto a smaller portion of
the land, leaving at least 50% of the property
open or forested, may achieve more units, build
fewer roads, and require less related
infrastructure. Costs go down,
product sales go up, and the environment is less
impacted.
So how do we get there? Deliberately.
Conservation practices, to paraphrase a song
from South Pacific, “have to be carefully
taught.”
*Data
quoted above is from a number of publications
found on the Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay
, www.alliancechesbay.org , www.ABC-online.org,
and Virginia Cooperative Extension www.ext.vt.edu
websites.
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