Parcelization and Forest Fragmentation Roundtable

Convened by the Vermont Natural Resources Council

Initial Meeting

June 27, 2006

Meeting Summary

Meeting Participants: John Austin, Virginia Barlow, Put Blodgett, Farley Brown, Bob Burt, Marta Ceroni, Cindy Cook (Facilitator), Paul Costello, Robert DeGeus, Ed Delhagen, Jamey Fidel, Erhard Frost, George Gay, Leo Laferriere, Lynn Levine, Stephen Long, Mark Lorenzo, Carl Powden, Mike Rainville, John Roe, Jim Shallow, Eric Sorenson, Brain Stone, Andy Whitman, and Jonathan Wood

Observers: Bob Hawk, Katie Maneras, Lucy Donaghy, Johanna Miller, Kenneth ____

Welcome and Overview of the Roundtable

Jamey Fidel, Forest Program Director at VNRC welcomed participants and thanked them for their commitment to the roundtable discussions.

Ground Rules

The group reviewed and approved the draft ground rules, and noted the need for clarity regarding how this group will make decisions and recommendations. Cindy will circulate a draft regarding the group’s decision-making process for everyone’s review and comment, prior to the next meeting.

Goals for the Roundtable

The group reviewed and revised the Draft Goals for the Roundtable, and agreed to add the phrase “and forest land loss” at the end of the bullet beginning “To share information and educate” and to add the following new bullets:

• Define the terms “fragmentation” and “parcelization”.
• Manage the effects of parcelization.

The group agreed that forest fragmentation is a significant problem, and that participants want to focus their time and energy on addressing the causes of parcelization and fragmentation and solutions for curbing their effects in Vermont.

Overview of VNRC’s Forest Conservation Campaign and Goals for the Roundtable

Jamey gave a slide presentation that described Vermont Natural Resource Council’s Forest Conservation Campaign. A hard copy of the presentation is available to anybody who would like one.

Some general comments were that there is still a good percentage of land in Vermont that is owned in large parcel sizes and presentations on trend information should reflect this. In addition, not all transactions that involve forestland are necessarily harmful. Some transactions involve repeat sales of the same land, etc.

John Roe commented that the roundtable should not confuse urban development trends with parcelization in rural communities and that the roundtable should define the parcel size that is of concern for discussion purposes.

Several participants noted that planning is an important component of addressing parcelization and fragmentation. Jamey noted that VNRC is working with planners to develop templates for forestland conservation. VNRC may convene another roundtable to discuss planning issues later this year or try to integrate more planners into the roundtable process. Farley noted that it’s important to remember that different communities have different needs, and face very different issues.

Other comments were that ownership trends and data need to be updated; general values and causes of forestland development need to addressed; biomass and energy are related issues and may involve international policy; and globalization is a contributing factor.

Jonathon thanked VNRC for convening the roundtable, and noted that the topic is a timely one.

Roundtable Participation

Jamey asked people for feedback regarding the composition of the roundtable. He noted that he was trying to create a group that represented a broad range of perspectives, while at the same time keeping the group size manageable. He emphasized that the roundtable is an open process, and that anyone is welcome to observe meetings.

Participants made the following suggestions re additions to the group:

• The Federation of Sportsmen Clubs
• Vermont Forest Products Association
• The Forest Products industry – primary manufacturing
• Bill Sayre
• NRCS land incentives program—Toby Alexander
• Legislators
• Congressional Delegation
• Town representatives
• LEAP program - Dave Birdsall

Discussion of Roundtable Meeting Themes

Participants raised the following issues as roundtable meeting themes in response to the question: What’s the most significant challenge to keeping Vermont’s forest parcels intact?

• How do we deal with the volume of issues that relate to this problem?
• There are many challenges and this is a complicated issue. We need to create unified political support for policy and leverage the collaborative process of the roundtable.
• Rising price of land; VT is beautiful.
• Values are changing in Vermont. There are changes in forestland owners and public attitudes towards timber harvesting.
• There is a shrinking constituency of people advocating for the woods as a priority issue. There is a disconnect between Vermonters and environmental issues.
• Local planning and land use patterns, i.e. “hide the house in the woods”.
• Societal issues - population increases, tourism and economic growth. There are hurdles with language (definitions) surrounding the issue.
• Rising price of land; generational shifts in use of land.
• Value differentials. For example, oil is creating a rapid change in the way we define values.
• The current property tax system encourages land break up. The Current-Use Program is not adequate. Land taxation system needs to be overhauled,
• Change in demographics, the loss of farms and the "old way" of life.
• Natural resource economy as livelihood; need to support forest products industry.
• Value of subdivision trumps ecosystem values.
• Problem with the way we value forests – “highest and best use” vs. products and services.
• Taxation – how we value land. Timber is viewed as a capital investment vs. ecosystem services.
• This issue presents an opportunity for collaboration as much as it presents a challenge. Roundtable should focus on driving factors or causes of parcelization/fragmentation vs. effects of parcelization/fragmentation. Factors are varied including socioeconomic factors, global and national policies, and philosophical values – how people relate to land.
• Unfavorable economic conditions, not just land ownership issues. Negative trickle down effect. Primary and secondary manufacturing having problems.
• There is a gap between local management and regional planning.
• Rising property values and the price of land. The "us versus them" issue – i.e. investors from out of state and the amount of second/vacation homes in Vermont. Creates issues of fairness and problems in how we use the land.
• Escalating land prices and the effect on timberland ownership. Woodland owners can make more selling their land than managing it.
• Rising market value of land – “parts are worth more than the whole”
• Land valuation. Also challenges in dialogue and communication on the issue. Must focus at the local level.
• Out of state money.
• People ask a great deal of our landscape and very little of ourselves.
• We are devoid of a spiritual relationship with the land, our focus is on owning land as a commodity.
• The need to maintain and create incentives to keep land under private ownership. This would include maintaining favorable state current use property tax programs, creating favorable federal tax policy toward private forestland ownership, particularly allowing for inflation adjustment on original cost of timber, and also favorable estate tax policy which would foster forestland being passed on to future generations.
• Maintenance of a working forest landscape requires a working forest products industry and supporting markets. The decrease in the number of wood workers, lack of capital investment in wood manufacturing, high worker compensation and energy costs, and global competition have impacted markets and landowners options regarding return on investment.
• Everyone wants to move to the forest!

Discussion of the Draft Roundtable Meeting Topics

Participants made the following comments regarding the draft meeting topics:

• The roundtable should focus on causes, drivers and solutions versus the effects of parcelization and fragmentation.
• Data should be updated and presented.
• The roundtable should discuss underlying values affected by parcelization and forest fragmentation.
• Relevant risk assessment work involving ecological considerations should be made available to the roundtable.
• The roundtable should decide whether to focus on large scale vs. small scale forestland parcels.
• One option is to focus on hot spots (e.g. wildlife corridors)
• The timber economy needs to be addressed considering both primary and secondary manufacturing.
• Measurable tools should be made available to the roundtable – what have we quantified?
• How do we deal with the feedback loop between causes and effects?
• The roundtable should talk about causes and patterns in general and set up a model to assist in our understanding of these concepts.
• The roundtable should distinguish between urbanization and parcelization.
• The roundtable should look at socio-economic trends (e.g. out-of-staters and posting).
• The effect of state and federal tax policies (e.g. tax deductions for second home mortgages; capital gains, etc.)

What We Know –And Don’t Know--About Forest Land Ownership Trends in Vermont

Andy Whitman, of the Manomet Center in Maine gave a presentation on existing data regarding forest parcelization in New England. Once VNRC has created a website for the roundtable, Andy’s presentation will be posted on the website

Bob DeGeus spoke about what we know, what we think we know, and what we don’t know about forest ownership trends in Vermont.

What We Know

Bob noted that:

• Vermont has 4,250,000 acres of forested land.

• 85% of Vermont Timberland is in private ownership.
• Approximately 1.5 million acres and 13,000 parcels are in the Use Value Appraisal Program. About 1/3 of all available forestland in Vermont is enrolled in Current Use.
• The difficulty of sustaining government programs is increasing; county foresters are overwhelmed by the number of transactions they see in the Use Value Appraisal Program.
• People don’t like change.
• Massachusetts and New Hampshire have minimum lot sizes for Current Use of 10 acres.

What We Think We Know

• New landowners have very different value sets than traditional landowners.
• Local markets for timber products have a strong impact on how forestland is managed.
• Wood processing capacity is an issue.
• Better management equates to longer land tenure ship.

What We Don’t Know

• What people think and the factors that go into people’s forestland management decisions.
• How land and policies work together or in conflict.
• How societal forces and various government policies interact with each other.
• What kind of baseline condition to manage from.
• How to enhance the current land tenure system with out creating new rules.
• The future of timber markets – where wood products are going.
• What we want the human environment to look like.
• What population density triggers a decline in the working landscape.

Next Steps

The July 25 meeting date is problematic, as this is the day that the new GMNF Supervisor has a meeting with a number of members of the roundtable. The July meeting may be postponed due to conflicts. Several people indicated that they would appreciate a more central meeting location for some of the meetings. Jamey will consider people’s input, check space availability, and e-mail information regarding the next meeting date and location.

The group agreed to review draft definitions by e-mail, prior to the next meeting.

Ideas for discussion at the next meeting included:

4 Demographics and social values

4 Decide what parcel size we are focusing on

4 Tax issues

4 Cost savings associated with land in current use (Deb Brighton)

4 Dave Kittridge, UMass

4 Develop a model to conceptualize what’s happening

4 Brett Butler – Forest Service

4 Bill Rossmassler re town conservation commissions

4 League of Cities and Towns for municipal representation