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Forest Legacy/Rural Legacy - An Opportunity for Forest Conservation |
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| Donald VanHassent | |||
| Session: April 16, 2000 | Author Info | ||
Maryland is a growing state and has been for some time. The Boston to Richmond megalopolis cuts through the center of the state. Even the western and eastern-most sections of the state are under some growth pressures. The growth in this area is placing ever increasing pressure on landowners to convert their lands from productive and environmentally important forest and agricultural land to residential and commercial development.
To protect important forest and agricultural land, Maryland is using two programs, one nationally available, "Forest Legacy", and one state created, "Rural Legacy".
FOREST LEGACY
History/Background:
Forest Legacy is a federal program that was created as a result of the Northern Forest Lands Study. This study evaluated the forests of northern New England and the potential environmental impacts of losing forest land to non-forest uses. The U.S. Forest Service and State Foresters realized that environmentally important forest land was threatened with conversion to non-forest uses in most, if not all, areas of the United States. The Forest Legacy Program was created to protect important forest land from conversion.
The program was first authorized in the 1990 Farm Bill by the U.S. Congress. The legislation authorized the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture to direct the U.S. Forest Service to develop and implement the program. During the first few years of the program, U.S. Forest Service personnel conducted most of the land acquisition work in cooperation with State forestry personnel. As more states joined the program, most of that work shifted to state personnel. As with most programs in the State and Private Forestry section of the U.S. Forest Service, the program is primarily carried out by State personnel with federal involvement usually limited to administrative overview responsibilities and occasionally some technical assistance.
Initially the program was limited to the northern New England states. After several years the program was expanded to include other states who wanted to participate. As of September, 1999, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Montana, Utah, Washington, California, Hawaii and Puerto Rico were either approved for the program or were well on the way to being approved. Ohio, Virginia, Georgia, Iowa and New Mexico are interested in joining the program.
The primary means of protecting these forest lands is a perpetual conservation easement which places limitations on what activities can be conducted on the property. The easement is generally held by the State agency in charge of the Forest Legacy Program. The option exists for the easement to be held by the U.S. Government (i.e.- U.S. Forest Service). This was the only option at the beginning of the program until 1996 when a change allowed the States to hold the easements.
Easement values are determined by appraisals that are performed according to federal guidelines. Offers to landowners cannot exceed the fair market value as determined by the appraisals. An additional requirement of the program is that a maximum of 75% of the dollars spent on the program can be federal dollars. The other 25% minimum must come from some non-federal source such as funds or in-kind services from state government, local government, land trusts or from donations by landowners. This 75/25 split does not have to be met on each tract of land entering the program but for the entire program over a 2 to 5 year period.
Program Formation:
The Forest Legacy Program is voluntary on the part of the States. Participation in the program is not a requirement for any other program. States that are interested in participating in the program must develop an Assessment of Need (AON). An AON is a document prepared by the State which describes the forest resources of the State, the threats to these resources and how the program will operate in the State. The AON is the document that is submitted to the U.S. Forest Service for their review. Once the AON is approved the State can participate in the program.
Preparation of an AON can be a lengthy and time consuming process. The first step is to identify areas of forest land that are threatened and also have one or more of the following environmental values:
Public participation during the initial area identification phase, as well as during the public comment gathering phase, is an important part of the AON process. Maryland used a committee of approximately 20 people including foresters, wildlife biologists, natural heritage ecologists, forest landowners, county and municipal government representatives, private conservation organizations, forest industry representatives and local land trusts to identify potential areas for the program. Once potential areas were identified, meetings were held with county Planning and Zoning personnel and elected officials to explain and discuss the program. Their comments prompted minor changes in area boundaries. These modified areas were then presented to the general public in a series of open houses around the state where landowners and other interested individuals could learn about the program. Comments received at these open houses were incorporated into the AON wherever possible. Other states have chosen to have scheduled public meetings rather than open houses. The manner of public participation is the choice of the state but it must be documented in the AON. The final AON incorporating all comments from interested parties is submitted to the U.S. Forest Service for review and approval.
Eligibility and Operation:
The Forest Legacy Program is available only in Forest Legacy Areas (FLAs) as designated in the AON. Any forest landowner who owns forest land in an FLA is eligible to apply for participation in the program. This program is strictly voluntary. It is a willing seller, willing buyer proposition. Under no circumstances will "eminent domain" be used to force a landowner to sell an easement. The landowner must be private individual or corporate entity. Government owned land is not eligible for the program. Landowners also have to meet any other requirements that may be established in the AON. An example would be a minimum acreage.
Each state may choose of how to select parcels for participation in the program. Maryland has decided to announce an application period using newspaper advertisements, asking local land trusts to contact potentially interested landowners and through our field foresters who work closely with many landowners. After the close of an application period, a subset of the committee that prepared the AON reviews, ranks and selects the parcels Maryland will work with to include in the program and begins easement negotiations with the landowners. Maryland submits a request for funding to the U.S. Forest Service at the appropriate time in the federal budget cycle. If funding is received, the real estate transaction process (appraisal, title search, survey, etc.) begins. If negotiations are successful and an agreement on price is reached, we go to closing and a parcel of forest land is protected in perpetuity. If negotiations are unsuccessful, both parties walk away.
Successes:
The Forest Legacy Program is still a rather small program in Maryland. To date, we have closed on 3 easements totaling 668 acres and are currently working on 5 other easements on approximately 1,500 acres. Nationally the program has protected over 90,000 acres.
Funding has been a key issue in the development of the program. As more states joined the program, funding did not increase proportionally. The pieces of the pie became smaller which generated a great deal of discussion among the active states as to how to equitably share the limited funds. Eventually a regional and then national ranking system was developed. This ranking system evaluated each parcel on a number of items such as the degree of threat of conversion, whether or not the parcel was contiguous with land that was already permanently protected, and the amount of support from communities, land trusts, local governments, etc. for protecting the parcel among others. Parcels that ranked out higher received funding while lower ranked ones did not. Even though this led to some states not receiving funding in any given year, it has worked fairly well.
The national funding level had been in the $4,000,000 to $7,000,000 level until federal fiscal year 2000 when the amount increased to approximately $28,000,000. The proposed budget for FY2001 is $60,000,000. Funding at that level would most likely allow each state to receive an allotment to purchase easements without going through the regional/national evaluation and ranking process.
RURAL LEGACY
Background:
The concept of Forest Legacy proved to be interesting enough to the policy and decision makers of Maryland to warrant using it in a modified version in a state program that is called Rural Legacy. The Rural Legacy Program became a part of Governor Glendening's Smart Growth Initiative along with four other programs. All are designed to try to control and direct growth in Maryland by protecting important agricultural and forest land, providing incentives to redevelop run down or abandoned industrial sites, providing incentives to live near your work, etc.
The Rural Legacy Program is administered by the Department of Natural Resources - Program Open Space (POS). POS is a state agency that works to acquire lands for state parks, forests, wildlife management areas as well as helping local governments acquire lands for parks and other open space purposes. POS works very closely with the Maryland Department of Agriculture and the Maryland Office of Planning in the administration of Rural Legacy.
Operations:
The Rural Legacy Program is very similar to the Forest Legacy Program. The program is available only in designated Rural Legacy Areas (RLAs) and perpetual conservation easements are the preferred protection mechanism. The differences are: 1) Rural Legacy includes agricultural land as well as forest and 2) each RLA must have a local sponsor, usually the county and a local land trust.
Rural Legacy has an annual application period in which each sponsor submits its plan of action for the year along with documentation to support the plan. Applications are reviewed by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR), Department of Agriculture (MDA) and the Maryland Office of Planning (MOP). Comments and recommendations from these agencies are forwarded to the Rural Legacy Advisory Board. The Advisory Committee also reviews the applications and makes recommendations to the Rural Legacy Board for the final funding decisions. The Rural Legacy Board consists of the Secretary of DNR, Secretary of MDA and the Director of MOP. Upon approval of an application, the sponsors are responsible, with POS assistance, for negotiating and finalizing the easements.
Funding:
The Rural Legacy Program has been targeted to receive $125,000,000 over
a 5 year period to purchase perpetual easements. To date, $54,000,000 has
been encumbered to be distributed among 22 RLAs. Six additional new applications
have been received in the current application period.
For more information about the Rural Legacy Program please contact:
Maryland Department of Natural Resources
Program Open Space
580 Taylor Avenue, E-4
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 260-8403
For more information about the Forest Legacy Program at the national level, please contact:
U.S. Forest Service
Cooperative Forestry
201 14th Street, SW
Washington, DC 20024
(202) 205-1190
For information about Forest Legacy in Maryland, please contact:
Donald VanHassent
Maryland Department of Natural Resources - Forest Service
580 Taylor Avenue, E-1
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 260-8504
Copyright 2000 By Author
Donald VanHassent
Maryland Department of Natural Resources - Forest Service
580 Taylor Avenue, E-1
Annapolis, MD 21401
(410) 260-8504