Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Good

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: afternoon. Welcome to the House Environment Committee. This afternoon, we are going to hear from Danny Fitzgow, commissioner of the Department of Forest Parks and Recreation about Act two seventy six, the State Wildlands Act. Welcome.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Great. Thank you for having me here today. It's a pretty important topic, and we're happy to be here to talk about it. For the record, I'm Danielle Pitsko. I'm the Commissioner of Forest Parks and Recreation. And I just want to call out that I had some all star members of our of the team here at ANR. I just want to recognize them because I want you to have access to all the information that I may not have, and so they're here with me to support me. So we have Oliver Pearson. He's our director of forests and our state foresters. If we have any sort of forest management questions, he's someone we can rely on. It

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: would be great to have folks introduce themselves because when people are just listening or you can't see, and if you're gonna answer and support along the way, then you don't have to introduce yourself every time. If you say who you are clearly and now, and if you wanna add what you might lean on them for, that's fine. But Okay. Maybe once would be really helpful.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Great. So I could pass it to Oliver? Yep.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: Do need I to be on camera?

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Nope. Just speak up.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: Oliver Pearson, the director of forests with the FPR Forest Parks and Recreation in the State Forester.

[Becca Washburn (Director of Lands Administration & Recreation, VT FPR)]: Becca Washburn, director of Lands Administration and Recreation, also the Chair of the Vermont Outdoor Recreation Economic Collaborative with the Forest Parks and

[Bob Zaino (Ecologist, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department)]: Recreation Department. Robert Zano, Ecologist with Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Great, thank you all. I want to add one thing about Becca. She also oversees our land conservation and FPR, so really important for this conversation. And I know you know Bob Zano. You have Vermont Conservation Design, Matt hanging up on the wall there. You know he's one of the big brains behind that. So I really just want to start off by saying wildlands. Yes, wildlands are important on the landscape for a lot of good reasons. They help support and restore old forests. We get more carbon storage in old forests. They support ecological resilience on the landscape. So it is incredibly important that we have wildlands in Vermont. What I do wanna share is that there's a scale of what where wildlands should be, when we're thinking about all the needs we want from our forests. I think you had testimony last year about the wildlands, woodlands, community farms and communities that looks at a New England wide sort of target for wildlands, and they're looking at about 10% would be the goal. When we look at Vermont conservation design, there's a 9% old forest target. If we were to reach wild lands at a 9% in Vermont, we would reach that old forest target. So yes, wild lands, but just trying to put it into scale of what we're looking at across the landscape. It takes a second, but then my next slide says wild lands on state lands? Yes. Believe wild lands should be on state land, and wild lands are on state lands. In fact, of the 370,000 acres of state lands that ANR manages, about 20% is already in that wild lands category. I will say, though, a blanket wild lands on state lands would be at a cost to other benefits that we're trying to get out of the forest and that we need from the forest. So when we're looking at wildlands on state lands, we say yes, but intentionally designated in places where we need wildland for ecological representation across the landscape. I kind of want to step back for a second and think about Vermont's forests and all that we get from Vermont's forests and the multiple public benefits. I know this committee cares deeply about forests. I've been with the forestry division for twenty years, sort of grew up in the forestry division. So I'm pretty passionate about all that forests provide us. And Vermont's forest landscape supports climate resilience. We know we need it for wildlife. We had the recreational benefits, working lands, so important in Vermont for a rural county, but also for the climate smart products that are really important, a renewable resource that we use here in Vermont. And I'll be honest, our working lands in Vermont, our forest management is gold star when we're thinking about forest management in other regions and other states. So when we know it's coming from Vermont, you know that it's really had the high standard of oversight. I mean, 80% of Vermont's forests that are managed have a management plan on them. FPRs directly with UVA oversees 2,000,000 acres, and then with state lands another 8% of the landscape. And then they provide so much more community well-being. So just kind of setting the stage, and we're looking at our forests, we need to be looking at how we maximize the benefits of all they provide, because every acre can't provide all the things that we want it to from a forest. So we've got to really think strategically. Also have heard in testimony, and this is reality, that we don't have much old forest in Vermont. We have less than 1%, and that's true. But we can't be upset that we've done something wrong. It's our land use history. And I want to flip the narrative a little bit to really talk about a success story in Vermont. We are now 74% forested, going from about 20% over a century ago. This is a huge success story. We are the fourth most forested state after, let's see, New Hampshire, Maine and West Virginia. And we have 4,500,000 acres of forest. That's pretty incredible. I'd say our forests are doing really well in Vermont. We're at a place now where we actually grow more in volume, three times more in volume each year than we're removing from harvest or die from mortality. So we're at a place that we're really accumulating growth in our forest, which is awesome. To me, the reason we have what we have in Vermont is because of decades of collaboration among landowners. I mean, 80% of Vermont is private landowners. State agencies working with the legislature, working with conservation partners, forest economy businesses, whether they're in the forest product sector or recreation, all have been working together to really put some smart policies and programs in place. Key examples, look at UVA. 2,000,000 acres, I already said, are in UVA. Primary purpose are for conservation, keeping forest forests our primary goal. But it also helps with supporting working lands. And now we have the reserve forest land category that actually helps us move towards more old forest conditions and functions, really showing that shift that wild lands, old forests, really matter. We also have Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and funding for conservation, which is really important. So there's a lot of programs that support keeping forests healthy, intact, and working for all. I'm even thinking about our land use policies that really support forest integrity. So really, I just, I kind of want to say, like, we're doing, like, some really good work that's taken a long time, and we should be really proud of that. I also want to just step back and say Vermont's forest, if we want to have that success story going forward, it really is a shared responsibility amongst all the landowners that own forests. We really want to maximize those benefits. We all need to work together. And I believe the states should be an example of how we should manage forests for those multiple benefits that they provide. If we're looking at recreational benefits, we're looking at working lands, if we're looking at wild lands, if we're looking at climate resiliency, if we're looking at hydrology, all those benefits that we get from the forest, the state should be a role model that for Vermonters, we can provide all of that to them. Because to me, public lands, they're your lands. They're Vermonters' lands. And we are very deliberate in our public input process to listen to Vermonters and what they want from their public lands. I'm going to shift here a little bit, because I think this conversation really focuses around Act 59, the Community Resilience and Biodiversity Protection Act, the act that started in this committee, which really establishes some statewide goals for 30% conservation by 2030 and fifty percent by 2050. I'm sure you're all familiar with Act 59. I think you have maybe someone coming in next week to talk a little bit more about the process. It's a really deliberate process that the legislature put forward for us to work towards meeting those goals. But foundational to meeting those goals is the law. It says that the framework or the roadmap to get there is Vermont Conservation Design. That is our ecological function of resilient landscape. And we have sort of the priorities of where we need to go if we want to have that desire of biodiversity and the resilient landscape in the future. As I mentioned earlier, Vermont Conservation Design sets two targets, They set an old growth target of 9%, and they set a young forest target of 3% to 5%. When we're looking forward, both of those right now are underrepresented. Again, when I'm thinking about wild lands and when we're trying to get to that old forest target, that 9%, if we were to conserve in a passive management, we can get to that vision of Vermont Conservation Design Set. Ag 59 also called for a statewide inventory of conservation. That was phase one. And that work is done, which is fantastic now to really have a clear understanding of where we have conserved lands. But in addition to where, know how those lands are being managed, which is so meaningful. Because the Act also defined three different classes of land categories, which are really important as we're thinking about our land conservation. How do we want them managed in the future? And then the last part of it, which it's actively working on now, is based on the inventory, based on robust and transparent public process, we're developing Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is in the lead, and A and R is in support of the plan, which will be delivered, in my understanding, to the legislature to you in June. So right now, they're in an active planning process. They have a technical advisory committee. I know they actually met yesterday. And starting February 2, I think, they'll be going all across the state hearing from Vermonters about what's in the action plan and what do they feel are the priorities and maybe what's missing, where are the gaps and where do they think these are really the actions we need to take. So that is deliberate that the General Assembly have a process where public can engage on how do we meet those conservation goals. I'm not telling you anything you probably don't really help me know, but I figure it helps set the table. So I just want to share those three definitions. Ecological reserve area. That's the first definition in Act 59. And that's when natural processes dominate. That is your wildlands. That is how we get to old forest targets. Ecological reserve area. I'm going to shift my language now away from wild lands and use the language that you asked us to use in Act 59 and start talking about ecological reserve areas as the wild land designation, because that's how we're talking about it now, because we've categorized our lands that way. Can you say that again? Ecological reserve area. The next one is biological conservation area. This is management that has outcomes that really benefit a particular species or habitat. So it's really targeted management for habitat species. Now, when I think of state lands and I think of fish and wildlife lands, wildlife management areas, they were purchased for the state, for Vermonters, a lot of it with a direct purpose for habitat. So if we take away the ability to manage them as a biodiversity conservation area, we absolutely are going against why those lands were purchased. Even the funders think when they bought it, it's meant for habitat management. And so that would be in the biodiversity conservation area. And then natural resource management is the last one, and that is sort of more general management that is sustainable management, thinking about like, this is not management where we're clear cutting everything and not thoughtfully. This is really thinking about the best practices on the ground. So based on the inventory that was done last year, 27% of Vermont is considered conserved. I'm not going to get into ag on this, but 27% is considered conserved, and 4% is in the ecological reserve area. So if we're thinking about Vermont Conservation Design and meeting that target of 9%, there's a 5% opportunity here to get to that 9% for Old Forest targets using ecological reserves. That make sense?

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Can you say that again?

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Yeah. So right now, there's 4% of the conserved land that is in ecological reserve. Vermont conservation design, which is sort of our roadmap of how we want to conserve land for ecological integrity and resilience, calls for 9% of old forests. If we have 9% of ecological reserves on the landscape, we could get to that 9% old forest target. And I provide my slides, so hopefully you have that. We have them. Okay, Let's see how state lands are doing. State lands right now are 20% in ecological reserve. So as I mentioned before, looking at ecological reserves on state lands is not anything new. We've been doing it for decades. It really matters. And we go through a really deliberate process of how to identify those lands that make the most sense for ecological reserve. We have biodiversity conservation areas at 26%. A lot of times that's on a wildlife management area, but certainly on state forests. And the majority of the land is in more of the natural resource management area. So state lands are already meaningfully meeting Act 59 goals. If you look at the 27% of land that's conserved in Vermont, state lands are contributing to 23. So we are really making an impact on the conservation targets that are being set. Okay. I'm going do my best here. When we're thinking about ecological reserves, location matters. The first map you see on the left, that's Vermont Conservation Design. That is the road map of where we want to keep the forest functioning. We want to keep the forest there. These also help us identify areas we want to conserve. The middle map is Vermont's biophysical regions. We have nine biophysical regions in the state. A biophysical region is areas that have similar soils, geology, climate. And so what that leads to is very unique forest types, natural communities, ecosystem processes that are very similar. So they're very distinct and sort of what kind of forests grow there. So we have nine of those in the state. The image to the right is public lands. And I have forest service land in here, so this is all public lands. I just want to show you where they're at. You can see they're primarily on the greens, and the Northeast King and some in Central Vermont. That's not bad. We've done great with conservation, but they're definitely in similar kind of areas. It's unevenly distributed across the landscape. So now it tells us we need to be thinking outside these areas if we want to really have that representation across the state. Did everybody get that? Okay. So state lands. This is just a map. The bottom axis is those are the nine biophysical regions and the amount of acres of state lands in those biophysical regions. You can see we've got a lot in the Northern Green Mountains. We've got a lot in the Southern Green Mountains, Northern Vermont, Piedmont, but we're lacking in some other areas of the state. So that just tells us overall where we have state lands. Okay, I'm going to take that a little bit deeper, stay in biophysical regions on the side now, and bar graph shows those Act 59 classifications, ecological reserves, biodiversity conservation area, and natural resource management areas, how much we have in each of those biophysical regions. If you look, Northern Green Mountains, Northern Vermont Piedmont, Northern Highlands, that's where we have the most ecological reserves, Very much underrepresented in those other biophysical regions. Opportunities there, for sure, but underrepresented. This highlights to us that when we're making decisions, we need to make place based decisions so we can get that ecological representation across the state where it's needed. Because we want the roadmap of Vermont conservation design, but what we have in front of us right now doesn't actually give us the tools to do that right now. But we have a plan being developed that'll hopefully get us there. Okay. This is my last graph, so bear with me on this one because this could take a little bit of explanation. I do have the expert who created it, Bob Zano in the room here, if I need some help. If you look at the bill, H. Two seventy six, and what it's saying is that it's putting basically 75% of state lands in ecological reserve. And it's putting them in areas where we already have a lot of ecological reserve. So the green bar is where we have existing the dark green is where we have existing ecological reserves. The blue is how the bill would actually help support us to meet the target. And the red is where it actually takes us beyond the target at a cost to some of the other benefits we want to see in that biophysical region. We may not be able to manage for carbon. We may not be able to manage for invasives because we would lose the ability for management at a cost to only having ecological reserves. I'll give you an example of carbon. Old forests absolutely store a heck of a lot of carbon. But if we really want to mitigate climate change and sequester more carbon out of the atmosphere, we need actively growing younger forests That can happen through management. Old forests actually, as they age, can become emitters of carbon as they decay. So there are trade offs, and as we're thinking of managers of state lands, we weigh all that in to try and have that balanced approach on the landscape. What you'll also see here is this bill does not help us get to areas where we actually need ecological reserves. It's not adding really anything to some of those areas. And so when we're thinking about how do we forward, how do we strategically get ecological reserves balanced across the landscape? That's my slide. Those are my technical slides. Any questions on those? Maybe Bob can answer them.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Give us a little preview of what's remaining because I'm not we have questions on that, but I

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Okay. What's remaining is I'm going talk about the ASK59's State Lands Working Group report, which actually gives us a roadmap of how to actually achieve ecological reserves on the state lands. I will talk a little bit about ANR's public process. So I have about four or five slides left. Maybe I go through those and we'll come back? Okay.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: That'd be good.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: So as part of Act 59, the legislature asks that we develop a report on how we can actually achieve more ecological reserves on state lands. And we had a working group that developed a set of recommendations. And yes, that working group had state land staff on it, but it also had The Nature Conservancy, Vermont Land Trust, Trust for Public Land, and an independent ecologist who I know you all know, Liz Thompson, all got together, some really great minds, to think about when we're looking at state land and how to achieve ecological lift, how do we get there? In a way that meets how we currently plan for state lands, which we believe is very public input involved, we want to stay that way. Sort of the core of public lands, the public should have a say. The first one is to establish a new statutory designation called Ecological Reserve Area. Now, mentioned we have 20% of state lands already in ecological reserves. There has been some concern that maybe that's not durable, and they really wanted more durable conservation because we designate our land classification through what we do the long range management planning process. And that's about a twenty year plan. While we don't anticipate things changing for ecological reserves, there has been some voice that maybe it's not that durable, we can add another layer of protection. So that is something that could be accomplished. In addition, when we're working on long range management plans, and then we have land classifications. We say, is this going to be We call it highly sensitive management area. That's an ecological reserve. We have similar biological diversity areas. We have high intense management areas. That's really our state parks and areas of high use. What we actually are already doing, because we're going to be creating a rule for our long range management plan in process, we'll come out starting in March. We're adding new land classifications already because we believe we should help implement moving the goals of Act 59 forward. So in our highly sensitive management areas, we're going to add an ecological representation area. Those would be ideal for the ecological reserve area statutory designation. We're kind of like setting up to actually go through a public process and then add a layer of more durable protection on it. We also, our special management area, recognize some lands just aren't ready yet for ecological reserve areas because we want to do some management in it that maybe will help with complexity. We want to make sure we're getting the functions out of the forest that will set it up, move it along to old growth conditions of forest faster. And we can do that through management. We've got some really smart foresters on staff working with UVM and a lot of other brilliant minds on how do we actually advance old forest conditions and functions. So we would put them in an ecological enhancement area, and then maybe in the next long range management plan, it bumps up to an ecological representation area. It takes time, but we'd be working on it. The next one is really like a process type action. And Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is one of our biggest funders for acquisition of state lands, which is fantastic. But they have currently in place a process where we co hold easements. VHCB will hold an easement, and so will a conservation partner. And we're working with them to sort of have a sole hold easement, so only one organization has an easement. That will allow for less be quicker on the conservation because we want to move faster. And it'll cost less because you don't have two organizations stewarding the easement. We are in conversations with BHCB on that now, so that's moving forward. We're going to the recommendation is to utilize landscape scale conservation planning analysis to help us guide where we need to meet Act 59 goals and ecological reserves. We're actively using this now. Inventory for phase one has just been a tremendous value for us because we now know where we need to sort of go. So as we go forward, we're going to most likely be putting into like when conservation projects come to us for review for state acquisition, we run through a whole review. Does this support wildlife habitat? All these sort of questions we ask, we're going say, does it help us meet ecological reserves on state land? So we can add that now and go back to the analysis. It's also when we're going through a long range management planning process, we saw some areas that are underrepresented. Do we need to add and consider more ecological reserves? We had the analysis now, so we're actively using the analysis and working on them before. And then the last one is initiate an evaluation of the role Forest Legacy Program can play. Forest Legacy is a USDA Forest Service Program and a huge funder for forest conservation. Ramon has been very successful in bringing federal dollars in for forest conservation. Kudos to Becca and her team for leading that work. To target investment from federal funds, we have a plan that goes along with it. It's called the analysis of need. That plan needs to be updated by 2030. We can now use the inventory, F59 planning recommendations that come out. When we're updating that plan, we can be thinking about how to integrate this information into that plan. So when dollars we go after dollars, it's targeted. So we haven't started working on that one yet, but it's in the pipeline. So that's what's in the Act 59 State Lands Working Group. Brilliant minds thinking about how do we really advance ecological reserves on state land. I have two slides here that just talk about the impacts or the outcomes of H-two 76. If you implemented this bill as it is today, it would expand ecological reserves unevenly across the state and concentrating them in areas that are already well represented, so it's not really strategic and targeted, which we feel like is important. And in those areas, it would really limit our ability to maximize those other benefits that we really want to see on the landscape. I will tell you what the monitors are asking for, because we go through a pretty intense public process. Also, what it does, it limits active forest management on state lands. It would put 77% of state lands on a no forest management trajectory, at the cost of supporting wildlife habitat, at the cost of climate resilience, mitigating carbon, at the cost of research. We have research plots that we work with UVM on climate adaptive forestry. We're really leading nationally on how to manage forests to set them up for the future. That is really important work, and you can do that on state lands. You can also be thinking about, like, on state lands, we do some really innovative work, and they are models for what we can do on private land. So if we do it on state land, we do the work, we've got proven demonstration, we can bring private land on and say, this is how you can think about climate adaptive forestry. Here's a model of how it's done. Really important. And also, it supports the rural economy. I know you've heard we don't do very many timber sales on state lands. We don't do a ton, but we try and do at least 10 a year. And some of the data that you have, it's like, you know, we've had floods, we've COVID, our staff are busy doing a lot of different things. But when we do those timber sales, they matter. They're jobs, They support your neighbors. And we're not driven by markets. So when the markets are really volatile and they're down, we can still put out timber sales and loggers have jobs. Like, that's really important because we're not landowners may say it's not the right time, but we're not driven by that. So it really is an important part of, as the state, really supporting Vermonters and their livelihood. So I know it's not a lot. We'd like to do more. We have capacity issues, but what we do do is quite impactful to those working. Plus, it helps us really manage for a lot of different things that would even think about invasives. We manage for invasives. Have emerald ash borer across the state now, so we want to be able to manage for safety. Then there's really good timber there that we could utilize. So it would just really limit us, and it would be at a trade off. I don't think it's in the best interest of Vermont. I'll just share a recommendation for your consideration. Because you put so much thought into Act 59 and to go through a deliberate public process of where investments I would recommend waiting for that to happen. I think getting ahead of that reduces the public trust that you've asked for it, so we really should wait to hear what the public wants and how we meet Act 59. I'll say, in the meantime, we're still moving forward on how to improve ecological reserves on state lands, but really strategically, on where we think it's underrepresented. I just want to touch briefly here on A, and our process and transparency, because I think you heard a little bit about that we're not transparent and we're not engaging, and that that that hurts, to be honest. We we really do our best to meet the public. And our process is we develop long range management plans, and we do assessments. It's the first thing we do. We want to understand the landscape. And as part of that assessment is public scoping. We ask Vermonters what they want out of that parcel. I know you hear from a lot of constituents, and I know you can imagine what we hear: more timber harvests, wild lands more recreation, no recreation more habitat management. It's all over, because everybody has different values, what they want from public lands. And it's our job to listen to their input, look at the assessments, and make some really smart land management decisions in a plan. Then we take that plan, and we go back out to the public, and we ask them to comment on it. What do you think? Did we strike the right balance? And we really look at the feedback on that. And I'll give you an example. The Worcester Range Management Plan, we had a call for more wild lands. Didn't want call for more working lands, honestly, as well. But we heard that, and we added 5,000 acres to ecological reserves in the Worcester Range. So it's absolutely a public process, and we stand behind it. Now, do we do public process after the plan is developed? No, we implement. Because that's now we have to know we implement the plan. If we were to go through a public process for all the projects that we're implementing, it would not be transparency. It would be we'd be paralyzed, to be honest. But I will tell you, we go through all the same permitting that everybody else does. And we have the way we manage, plan for manage lands, we have five different districts. And each district has a stewardship team, a district stewardship team that is made up of a watershed planner, a wildlife biologist, a fisheries biologist, a recreation specialist, a forester, an ecologist, forest health, they review everything. And I'm going to tell you, it is not easy to get through that review because everybody has their discipline and they come together and say, if we're doing it, it's going to be done the best way possible. So yes, we do public input in the planning process, and we implement professionally based on assessments and review. I just want to call that out because to me it's so important to recognize our incredible staff that work on state lands, because they are some of the most dedicated public servants that care so deeply on meeting the values of what Vermonters have asked for. And I just want them to know that they are supported. I support them 110% on the work that they're doing.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: just want to bring us back to that one forest that we have in Vermont, that's 74% forest land and all the benefits that forests provide, as we manage state's land at a landscape scale, we try and balance ecological integrity, we try and manage climate resilience, We bring in recreation at appropriate places. We bring in working forest because they're so important for the economy and for our management needs. We think about community well-being. We think socially, how do people use the area? We think about flood protection and so much more. That is what we do. We're managing public lands. So I just want to end and say thank you for letting us talk about this, because we think about this all the time. This is not new for us, and we care deeply about it, and want to be partners with you on how do we think about we are smart and strategic about where ecological reserves on state land as opposed to a blanket approach. That's it.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you very much for this thoughtful presentation. Totally, I want to just echo your shout out to your amazing staff and the work that you do and our deep appreciation for it.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Thank you.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you. I have a bunch of questions, but I will ask if members have questions. Representative Morris, did you have

[Representative Kristi Morris]: I had a question, but I think it was subsequently answered. Follow-up slides and explanations. I appreciate

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Okay.

[Representative Weber (first name unknown)]: Thank you. And

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: we're happy to follow-up with anything.

[Representative Kristi Morris]: Sometimes it's best to listen.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I talk fast too, so I apologize. It's just my nature.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: That was really well done.

[Bob Zaino (Ecologist, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department)]: Thank you, Matthew.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Chapin?

[Representative Ela Chapin]: Formulating this as I think, but I guess I'm curious. Was a great presentation. I love seeing all the graphs and seeing that's built up by a region. It's really helpful to have data. I am curious about funds. You touched on the Forest Legacy program briefly, which is federal. I guess I just would love to hear a little bit more about And you named some of the next steps in implementing Act 59, but I guess I'm just curious about different funding streams, mentioned BHCV, which comes through the property transfer tax and statutory program, Different funding sources for state lands conservation, and maybe just a really brief trends that you're seeing in those funds and how new conservation land projects happen on an annual basis?

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I would answer this and probably give it, it'd be about a 75% answer. So I'm gonna pass it to Becca who knows this in and out.

[Becca Washburn (Director of Lands Administration & Recreation, VT FPR)]: Is it okay to answer here?

[Representative Ela Chapin]: Okay, great.

[Becca Washburn (Director of Lands Administration & Recreation, VT FPR)]: So that's a wonderful question. We have a whole variety of sources across the agency that we use for land conservation, whether it's DEC, environmental conservation, fish and wildlife, or forest parks and recreation. Forest parks and rec is what I know best, although these sources are accessible to our other sister departments. But the Forest Legacy program is a big one. We have more than $10,000,000 in active projects going on right now as we speak, and we have several queued up to close over the next several years. This is a program, as Danny mentioned, we are really competitive with and are recognized nationally as being one of the better administered programs in the country. So this is a source of funding that we've been able to put to really good use from the state and expect that to continue. The Land and Water Conservation Fund is another federal source of funding that we use a portion of for land acquisition and capital improvements on our state lands. That is fueled by offshore oil leases, and it can waiver from administration to administration, whether those revenues increase or decrease, and we are seeing an increase. It's also a result of the Great American Outdoors Act passing and fully funding the Land and Water Conservation Fund program. So we've been using that quite a bit, matching the HCB, Housing Conservation Board dollars, and other sources that come in through our conservation partners often. So funding stream, I would say, is in pretty good shape considering other volatility with that type of funding. With the Vermont Housing Conservation Board, we're looking at ways that we can help be really strategic about the funding that they have that's existing, but always encourage the legislature to think about what it means to fully fund the Housing and Conservation Board. They'll be in in a couple weeks. Think they're gonna take over the State House. So those are some great sources. Fish and Wildlife has been really innovative and creative in using particularly water quality and wetland restoration dollars. In the last couple of years, you may have seen or been a neighbor to farm buyouts where they're doing some wetland restoration work and sunsetting farms that unfortunately have gone out of business, but fortunately were able to do some work to restore them to their natural habitat. So those are some examples of the funding forecast right now. I believe Trey will be in next week to talk a little bit about the status of Act 59. And one of the objectives is really focused on what is it going to take from a financial standpoint and from a capacity standpoint to really lean into this whole vision of 30 by thirty and fifty by 50. And we've been working with conservation partners and others in the community and municipalities in particular to better understand where do we need those resources in order for us to make a meaningful difference towards this goal.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: And maybe I'll just add, some of the funding for conservation comes from the US Forest Service Forest Legacy Program nationwide for with the interior appropriation at the federal level that funds the US Forest Service was just passed. There's a $6,000,000 decrease from 94 to 88,000,000 nationwide for Forest Legacy, but there's still 88 and a half million dollars available for Forest Legacy nationwide in Vermont to submit applications and hopefully be successful in bringing some of those dollars to Vermont to support forest land conservation.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: We could thanks senator Leahy for starting Forest Legacy. First project in Vermont.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Quick follow-up. Just

[Representative Ela Chapin]: a rough number of acres added to state lands every so often? Do you have a sense?

[Becca Washburn (Director of Lands Administration & Recreation, VT FPR)]: The acres really vary. I mean, we have an upcoming closing that's over 3,000 acres and that's anomalous, but that will put our annual acreage acquisition up pretty high this year. If you want some more of the trends, I'd be happy to follow-up with some data that

[Representative Ela Chapin]: I can share with you.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I'll just share, I signed some documents yesterday. It's only gonna be a 22 acre, but it's an in holding, right? So it's so important for us to get that. So Another strategy for ours is to get as much integrity so we have not holes in the forest, and so that was something we work on. And then a lot of times adjacent lands is another strategy for us, but sometimes they're pretty small. And I'm expecting as we look at implementing Act 59, it's going to be the quality as opposed to the quantity, because we're really trying to meet ECD.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Doctor. Dennis Atkins?

[Dr. Dennis Atkins]: Yeah. Thank you so much, Danny, for being here. It's great to have this presentation all the folks with you. A couple of thoughts I'd love to get your response to. I'd like to, I think, push back just a tiny bit on some of the framing. You said that 74% of Vermont's forested, and that's wonderful compared to when we had massive deforestation in the nineteenth century. But we're losing forests, and we have been for quite some time. And so we're really going in the wrong direction presently, where even though the bigger picture is that we've gained a lot from a 100 plus years ago. But I just wanted to

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Listen, we're watching it too. And actually, have research we're working on with UVM to get better data. We're using FIA data, which is not that specific that we need. So we're working to get geospatial data that'll tell us more directly the SARS change. But we are seeing some ag lands revert, but I agree. Keep forest forest primary strategy.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: If you look at the curve that we are losing forest, but the rate annually at which we're losing forest has slowed down, which is an important step forward. And that's probably because of all the conservation market that Becca was describing.

[Dr. Dennis Atkins]: That's great to hear because I do worry that with all the additional development pressures that we're under, that we are gonna be sort of, you know, sort of a race towards how fast can we conserve the land versus how fast it's eaten up by by by development that is in places that we might not wanna.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: We can share the best data we have with the committee on it. So

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: This is smart growth. Right? Like, whether it should happen.

[Dr. Dennis Atkins]: Then in terms of Vermont conservation design, my understanding is that those are goals that are scientifically informed to get us to an ecologically sustainable place. But that they're not ceilings. They're not like, once we hit those numbers, we're done. It's like, that's just what we need in order to have a healthy Vermont. And so I would like to think of those numbers more as sort of a floor rather than a ceiling. And I feel like in your presentation, it was presented more like, if we're going beyond those numbers, like kind of what's the point? We're hitting our goals. We don't need to do this anymore.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I think we can go beyond that, but we also have to recognize there's a reason we have large areas of natural resource management, because we're here and we use the products that come from the forest to sustainably manage them. Maybe not, I mean, we've heard statistics and some research out that Vermont doesn't consume all the wood that it produces, but we think of the region. And we are in a region of the way the woods flows, we consume more than we harvest. So we are supporting some of our urban states, but wood is what we should be using in the place of concrete and steel and it's renewable. And then when we do that management, it does have that sequestration effect. So think if we can get use less, if we consume less, I think we can actually increase ecological reserve, but we're not there right now. Illusion of Preservation is a great You should have Tony DiMato and Kate Logan Littlefield come in. That is a fantastic report that outlines this.

[Dr. Dennis Atkins]: I think it is a really complicated conversation. Think just saying that we need to be providing more wood products is is a is too simple to to talk about what what's really going on, that there might be a lot of opportunity for us to make better use of existing timberlands that that that are not being managed for timber the way maybe they they could be, that make up some of that deficit that you might think we we would get if we did protect, you know, go beyond VCD goals.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I think it's important that we look at this integrated approach as we go forward and think of all all this together, which is really complicated and really important that we do. And this is one piece of all the other components that are keeping far as far as

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Representative Weber.

[Representative Weber (first name unknown)]: Thank you. Thank you for your careful attention. I did experience your UV on jewels that were at the Cilial Conte Center, plantings,

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: 500

[Representative Weber (first name unknown)]: seedlings, and for the follow-up year after year after year of the growth rates. Very important to know the future. But my other question is under old forest designation, there's a new category coming. I believe it's called reserve forest. And within the UVA program.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: That's correct.

[Representative Weber (first name unknown)]: Is that an incentive to get persons or properties that privately owned move to a subgroup within the UVA program.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Yes. And we'd be happy to come in and talk about this because we just delivered a report on reserve forest land. It is a subcategory under the forest management category of UVA. It is targeted on where it can happen, have to have certain conditions on the ground. It is still an active management category, but the goal is to move the forest to old forest conditions and functions. So we want the forest to function like an old forest and have those characteristics. I think right now, 11,000 acres?

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: Yes. It's only been in effect since 2023. There's 55 UVA parcels that are currently for old and reserved forest land, 11,400 acres and it's growing. It was slow to start the first year more in the second year, more in the third year and that's what it's in. It's around a ten year cycle to update their UVA management plans and so there are some are doing it right away but some of the same thoughts are waiting to the next update to move. And not everyone's eligible. As the commissioner said, you have to meet certain conditions, but they are financial incentive

[Representative Weber (first name unknown)]: for moving.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Mhmm. Same.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: The you receive the same property tax benefits and reserve forest land because of acknowledge that that that provides benefits for environmental services, etcetera, that that, you know, are sort of on par with other benefits of UVA from actively managing the forest. So, yes, the the if you're in reserve forest, then you receive the same property tax benefit as if you were in managed forest land, which is the more traditional category.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I think this is an example of that integrated thoughtful policy that allows for inclusion of reserve forest land at a scale that we're trying to achieve and also still maintains a lot of regular traditional forest land at UVA. And it is picking up now. We'd be happy to share Keith Thompson.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: When we were in the field at Peach And Bog with Sheldon and some other representatives, we saw how land management and state lands was combining with reserve forest and on the budding lands to promote conservation goals. And some of that was active management on state lands for wildlife management and wildlife habitat restoration purposes combined with reserve forest land adjacent. So again, it's that flexibility in allowing biologists and ecologists to make decisions about how they think land should best be managed to meet the public intent of the state of the lands. Thank you.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I guess I'm thinking about or I'd like to hear your thoughts on permanence, because I think that's a piece that's missing when we talk about designations in forest management plans. And related to that, we shared a statistic we've seen a lot of how much old forest we have versus young forest, and I would really like to know how we're tracking young forest. I have a strong feeling in my county that there's a lot more young forest than you might all be tracking, and I'd just like to know how you are tracking that. So I'll stop there. Have a couple more.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Yeah. The first remind me the first one again.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Permit. It's just your thoughts on permits because a forest management plan is not permanent. No. No. And I think that's just a big thing we need to debate and understand different perspectives on permanence. And because old forests take more time. Right. It's easy to become a young forest. It's much harder to become an old forest.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Are you saying you get permanence on state lands? Mhmm. Okay. So state lands, I would say, permanent. Overall, it's conserved. Right? I don't think we're going be selling off our state lands.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: But categories,

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I agree. So we go through a long range management plan that's usually a twenty year plan where we classify lands. A highly sensitive management, what we call it, would equivalent to ecological reserve. Now, the next planning cycle, it could change, depending. Right now, I would not see it changing, but it could. That's where we're talking about a statutory designation for ecological reserve that would provide another layer of protection on it.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Which is why I chose the word wildlands, to be clear, in this bill. So and to not conflate the two, but so I don't I'd like you to keep

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: We have a natural areas designation that is also in statute that has a little bit more permanency to it. So we did try to provide sort of a mechanism to recognize that people want to have some that permanency is important. And so there would be a proposed process where we could add another layer on top that would keep it in that land classification of, I'm calling it, ecological reserve.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Unfortunately, even recently, we learned how not permanent those designations can be, and how vulnerable they might be when a lift is proposed potentially through an important permanently state protected Well,

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I don't expect too much, but

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I do think there is need for a permanent And

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: to be honest, we were not supportive.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And I'm very appreciative of that. I mean, we But to avoid those kind of conflicts, I think we do need to talk about having a process for permanent state owned wildlands. Yeah. That's the point of it having statutory permanence.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Right. And we agree. And I would share that I would like to propose that it should go through our traditional long range management planning process, where we do the assessments to identify the where. We go through the public process, so we identify the support. And then we put the layer of protection on it. So again, public lands are a process. We would use the long range management process. I know there's some concern that that could take a long time. We are already thinking about how we can be efficient with that kind of designation. So lots to discuss, but I think there's options and pathways forward.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: I hear that and I heard it from your staff, and that's great. And I understand that. I guess when you think about it that way, I would have, and Vermont Conservation Design talks about minimum sizes for core areas and the importance of large contiguous forests that are also mature and old. And I so when I look at the current way forest management plans are written, I see a lot of smaller parcels

[Representative Weber (first name unknown)]: not

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: parcels, but areas management areas that are in what you're calling an ecological reserve type of category. And I just think that's another thing we need to talk about.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I think when we have larger areas, like the Worcester Range, 52%. Camel's Hump, almost 30%. When we have those opportunities, we can go there, but we don't want to trade off some of the other benefits we're trying to get. Some management areas are just smaller parcels when you're trying to get more out of it, but in those core areas, I think we've really tried. And maybe there's more opportunity.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: And then just a couple more nuts and bolts y questions. I love that citation that you have for old forest becoming emitters of carbon. And curious what tools you feel like you're missing for ramping up conservation in other biophysical regions that are underrepresented.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I think the Act 59 process, they're working on those action items, hopefully that'll be an outcome. I also did not answer your question about young forests, and I'm not the best one to answer that question on tracking. I don't know. Is that something you track, Bob?

[Bob Zaino (Ecologist, Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department)]: I think it's something that we've been trying to get a handle on for years, and it's hard to do because it's temporary and very spatially distributed around. It seems like LiDAR should be the perfect tool for that, but it's actually surprisingly challenging to get that data. But it's a goal to eventually have something that could track that.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Well, I'm actually surprised if you, as a Department of Fish and Wildlife person, are the one trying to get that. I would think it would be FPR and our current use program that would be most useful in tracking it. And I guess I would caution then that we're constantly hearing that three to 5% young forest when I'm seeing a lot of young forests in our neck of the woods. And it's current use land. That's fine. That's great. But I think we may not be underrepresented.

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: Yeah. There's a I mean, we do track it, both on state and private land. And so I think we're we defer it to Bob there because the thermal conservation designs did a great job of framing the target there, and Bob's very knowledgeable about this. But that, by no means, suggests that we've deferred that to fish in the wild. If there's a Vermont Forest Indicators dashboard, the FE and C, of course, and System Monitoring Collaborative program maintains with some information about age, diversity, and so that's a good source of information. But it's all the information is heavily caveats. We don't have enough parcels and plots, and active data collection to be sure at a high degree of confidence of of these numbers. So it'll say this x percentage of of beyond mature old course, and the error bar, it's a standard deviation, it often exceeds the the amount. So, you know, I think what you see across the state is a lot of variation. You may be seeing in Addison County a lot of harvesting on UVA lands, which is the purpose of that program for actively managed forests. But I think statewide, the the the the conclusions of Vermont conservation design that the three to 5% and the reason it varies is because it depends on the forest type. The three to 5% young forest target is underrepresented. It's consistent with the data that we have at the state level.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: So where does your tracking system who's doing that? Where is that data coming from?

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: So it comes from different sources. All 13 of our county foresters are making somewhere between fifty and seventy five annual site visits to parcels that are being managed under UVA management plans, and they're just keeping track of what the status of implementation of those plans are, and that's fed into a database. There there's thousands of parcels in UVA, and they only get out to around 75 per year. So that's that's information that sort of seeps in on an annual basis to that database, but we don't have the capacity to have sort of up to date data on all thousands of parcel at any one time. And then, of course, we know what's happening on on state lands. As commissioner Fitzgow said, we aim to put out about 10 timber sales, two per district. We have five forest management districts. Because of COVID, market issues, the floods, other funding sources for flood recovery, we haven't met that target of 10 timber sales per year, but we're ramping up to that. And, of course, that's based on completed long range management plan. So it's not a a willy nilly brush made up timber sales. It's like, what do our plans tell us that we should be doing? So we know what's happening on state lands through implementation and monitoring of our timber sales. We have an idea through our UVA site visits of our county foresters, given what's happening on private lands, but that's incomplete. Then we could always ask the feds what's happening on the Green Mountain National Forest and try to put together a statewide.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Could you say the name of the tracking system again?

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: It was a UVA database, which is what we use for the oversight of the use value of pricing program.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: If you said a forest ecosystem

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: Oh, yes. This is this is aggregating data. It's it's the FEMC, Forest Ecosystem Monitoring Collaborative as a forest indicators dashboard. That's a university that's funded with with federal dollars, and they have some data on age standard version.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Thank you. Any other questions from members?

[Representative Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Representative Austin? Can I just share an observation that I've been noticing? And I hope this isn't too targeted to my constituents, but I've just noticed Fort Chittenden County and Champaign Valley, like on two different charts, how kind of little ecological reserves there are, you know, in that area. You know, for people, that's a lot of population to get in their car and enjoy a forest or a hike. I see that you have it still needed to meet the CD target. And I just encourage it to try to do that.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: I think that's where the goal is to be strategic and move in those directions. I think that's what will come out of Act 59 is, again, it's gonna be quality of where the conservation happens to help us meet that. But access too. Yeah. I mean, that's a big part of what we do. Yes. Agreed. Great. Thank you. Yep. I appreciate the opportunity to visit with everybody here today. It's Friday. Long week. I look forward to more conversations.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Yes. Thank you. And thank you for your work generally, but also specifically on Act 59. And it's great to see it being implemented. It's exactly what I think we'd envisioned, was drawing attention to those underrepresented areas of the state that we needed to make sure we were conserving before it was too late. So thank you for that.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Thank you.

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Alright. Members, final Friday thoughts before we adjourn for the weekend.

[Representative Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Any recommendations for meetings for next week or June?

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Look at the VHCb Act 59 web page. That would be a great thing to do. We are having an end. We're gonna do that walk through of the DEC bill after hopefully hearing the final represent presentations from different divisions of DEC. We'll walkthrough with Michael Grady on Wednesday morning. So looking to do markup with him then on that bill.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: What didn't you say about the DEC? The DEC what?

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: Miscellaneous bill, the All

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: of that. Yep. Six thirty two. Six thirty two

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: That we've been taking testimony, a lot of testimony wrong. That's what I would recommend.

[Representative Sarah "Sarita" Austin (Clerk)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: Thanks. Nice

[Oliver Pierson (Director of Forests/State Forester, VT FPR)]: to see you correctly, Madam Chair. Act 59 went into effect just last year.

[Representative Weber (first name unknown)]: Right? 59?

[Representative Amy Sheldon (Chair)]: No. Act 59 was our 50 by 50 bill. That was two years ago. Two years ago. Inventory came back to us last year, and that plan will come back. Yeah. And so next week, we'll hear from VHCb, who's the main facilitator of that, but also hopefully ANR and other

[Commissioner Danielle "Danny" Fitzko (Vermont Department of Forests, Parks & Recreation)]: member