VFF Forest Conservation Planning (for VT Current Use Program)

Below, you'll find information geared toward forest landowners interested in having Vermont Family Forests create a forest conservation plan for the Current Use (Use Value Appraisal) program. VFF currently works with more than 200 landowners in Vermont's Center-west Ecoregion to create or update forest conservation plans, as required for participation in this program.

Vermont Family Forests is first and foremost about forest ecosystem health—supporting the land’s inherent capacity for self-renewal and maintaining water quality, native biological diversity, carbon sequestration and storage capacity, and flood and drought resilience. We practice and encourage organic forestry. What does that look like?  Careful, beautiful, light on the land practices that are cost-effective, thoughtful, and healthy for the whole community. Growing bigger trees and leaving plenty of dead snags and large downed logs. Properly located and stabilized access trails and roads.

If this approach sounds like what you're looking for in terms of forest management planning, check out the resources below and email us with any questions.

• Vermont Family Forests Organic Forest Ecosystem Conservation Checklist.  VFF's Organic Forest Ecosystem Conservation Checklist gives a clear picture of the practices we recommend to all of the forest landowners we work with. We believe these practices conserve not only the health of individual forest holdings, but also the health and well-being of the whole forest community and the commons we all share—including water, air, and wildlife. Before deciding whether you’d like to have us create or update your forest plan, we encourage you to read through the checklist and make sure it aligns with how you envision caring for your forest.
• Landowner Objectives. If you decide you'd like to have Vermont Family Forests create or update your forest conservation/management plan, the first thing that happens is that our Conservation Forester meets with you to learn about your objectives for your forest. Together you'll go through this Landowner Objectives worksheet. It can be helpful for you to ponder the answers to the questions beforehand to make sure you answer as fully as possible.
• Acceptable Management Practices (AMPs) for Maintaining Water Quality on Logging Jobs in Vermont. (This link takes you to the VT FPR webpage where you can click on the orange-covered AMP booklet. It should open up in a two-page format. Some computers only display a single-page format, such that every other page is missing. If this happens for you, simply download the document, and it should display correctly in Adobe.) Produced by the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation, this manual details best practices for building/maintaining forest access roads and removing forest vegetation. Landowners participating in Vermont's Current Use program are required to follow the AMPs.
• VFF Maps and Mapping. Every VFF conservation plan includes a full color map of the forest. (Here's an example of what our maps look like). The completed forest plan includes an 11x17" hard-copy map, and we also provide landowners with a geo-referenced pdf version of the map. Using the Avenza app on your smartphone or tablet (available free in the Google Play and Apple App stores), you can open your digital map when in your forest, and you'll see a blue dot that indicates where you are on the map. As you move through the forest, your blue dot moves across the map in real time, guided by the phone’s GPS. You can track your route, drop and label pins at particular sites, and more.
• What is Community-based Forest Renewal (CFR)? In the conventional forestry world, foresters use the term “Timber Stand Improvement,” or TSI, as a catch-all for various forest management activities aimed, as the name suggests, at cultivating high-quality timber products. To meet this aim, TSI employs vegetation management practices like crop tree release and pre-commercial thinning. In this human-centered paradigm, forest landowners are either preparing for a timber harvest or carrying one out.
  In these times of rapidly changing climate, forest landowners are increasingly aware of the need to tend their forestland in ways that conserve water quality, species diversity, carbon sequestration and storage, and flood and drought resilience. VFF's CFR practices focus first on forest health, with the side-benefit of improved timber production. The link above will bring you to a blog we wrote explaining our CFR practices. Some landowners carry out CFR practices themselves (we strongly encourage any landowners interested in carrying out chainsaw work to take the Game of Logging training course(s)--see below); some hire VFF's Conservation Forester to do CFR work.
• Game of Logging Chainsaw Training. Since the early 2000's, Vermont Family Forests has hosted the outstanding instructors from Northeast Woodland Training each year to teach the safe, efficient, effective use of chainsaws. The training system they teach is called "Game of Logging," a title dating back to the program's origins as a training program for loggers. The Basic Chainsaw Use and Safety course is optimal for people who have never used a chainsaw before. Game of Logging Levels 1-4 build on one another (and must be taken sequentially), with every level increasing your proficiency and safety in the woods. We can't stress the value of these courses enough.

Current Use (Use Value Appraisal) Program links

• Use Value Appraisal of Forestland in Vermont. Created by the VT Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation (FPR), this brochure offers a helpful summary of the UVA program for forestland owners.
• Other FPR resources for the Current Use program.
• Wild Forests Vermont’s Current Use Study Overview. January 2022. Expanding Vermont’s Current Use program to include a wild forest category of land use is a much needed update. Learn why.
• Acceptable Management Practices. This link will connect you with FPR's information page about the Acceptable Management Practices that forest landowners participating in Vermont's Current Use program agree to follow, including a link to a pdf of the AMPs.
• Tax-related Current Use information (from VT Department of Taxes)
  When you opt to participate in Vermont's Current Use program, you sign a contract with the State of Vermont. To fulfill your contractual obligations, you need to stay on top of completing and submitting paperwork, starting with the application, and continuing with submitting any required documents, including the yearly activity reports. Vermont Family Forests does not do this for you, so it's really important that you understand what your obligations are and when the paperwork associated with those obligations is due.
  • How to apply to and participate in the Current Use program. This page is chock-full of information about the program.
  • UVA Forest Activity Report. Landowners participating in UVA are required to submit an activity report by February 1 if they conducted forest management in the previous year.