1. Reaching a Shared View of Appropriate Forest Management in Vermont
Jessica Massanari, Marta Ceroni, PhD
and Joshua Farley, PhD

2. The Delphi Survey
The Delphi is a multi-round, anonymous survey of professionals utilized in this study to reveal consensus opinion concerning best forest management practices in Vermont. This survey of 15 participants included:
2 members of conservation organizations
4 members of state forestry agencies
4 forestry/natural resource academics
5 practitioners and/or consulting foresters

3. Survey questions focused on goals:
What are the desired ends of forest management?
Economic
Ecological
Social

4. ....on policies:
How should forests be managed to achieve these goals ?
Scale of management (e.g. Private property, watershed, biophysical region)
Role of government in creating appropriate incentives for management goals (ecological, economic and social)
Suitability of UVA and Northern Forest Lands Council (NFLC) sustainability principles

5. ...and on forest structure
What forest structure is best for achieving goals?
Extent of forest coverage
Composition of forest (age structure, mosaic of management patterns, etc.)
Level of harvest

6. Goals Forest management should:
Goals for forest management in Vermont should include:
Focus on ecological benefits and detriments on the scale of:
Goals for forest management on individual properties:

7. Policies Possible market incentives might include:
If government creates economic incentives, the justification(s) should be:
Possible market incentives might include:
Vermont land-use policy should:

8. Forest Structure Desired similar levels of forested acreage
Annual harvest rates should not exceed annual growth rates
All favored some level of harvesting
Favored a mosaic organization of management
Watershed and biophysical regions as appropriate landscape levels for management

9. Other areas of consensus
UVA guidelines should be flexible, but should do more to promote economic, environmental and social benefits to forest landowners and the surrounding communities and region

10. Preliminary areas lacking consensus
Promoting long-term economic goals will adequately promote ecological and social goals
The UVA program funding
Preservation/modification of the current UVA system
Adopt a “forest practices act” in addition to UVA

11. Comments on UVA strengths
Encourages wood markets
Promotes long term investment in the land
Reduced tax burden/ need for subdivision and development
Sustainable forestry as required by UVA serves to protect and enhance ecological objectives
Maintains local jobs, esp. loggers, foresters
Increases overall awareness/ education of and adherence to proper natural resource management
Less parcelization, less sprawl, landowners hold off on developing land

12. Comments on UVA weaknesses
Inability for landowners to manage their lands for wildlife/ecological features/biodiversity as a primary objective
Program needs to be more adequately funded/staffed
Differing interpretations across county lines/ too much opportunity to avoid necessary principles and outcomes
UVA provides only a small economic incentive
Small penalty for withdrawal
Unclear if UVA is a Land Conservation law or Forest-product stream law
Sometimes viewed as “welfare for the rich”

13. Comments on UVA funding
Stewardship should be economically rewarded
Incentives make forestland more desirable for everyone- poor less competitive
Resources for incentives are not lacking, need for more program administration and monitoring of individual parcels

14. Comments on ecological goals
Need a better planning model that prioritizes lands at risk
Need community support to accomplish ecological goals
Need for firm, comprehensive goals that allow for adaptive management to inform

15. Comments on social goals
UVA is a tax-equity program, cautious about moving it into a social program
We should pay for additional social benefits provided, but not require social benefits
Some parcels provide more social benefits than others

16. Other comments on UVA
Parcel uniqueness: Forest management can’t follow cookie cutter prescriptions/ Hard to generalize about benefits as they differ from parcel to parcel.
If the law depends on funds from the public at large, it should address their needs.
All land should be taxed at use value and a forest practice legislation could set higher minimum forestry standards.
UVA should focus on long-term economic benefits for owners, not short-term ones.
UVA is fragile,controversial and not always seen as positive and beneficial by the public. There is a fear that opening the policy to debate could erode, rather than improve existing policy.

17. Conclusions We plan to conduct a final round
Data can be used as a consensus document for policy design
How should UVA address these goals?

18. Jessica Massanari jmassana@uvm.edu
Community Development and Applied Economics, UVM