Process Followed – Draft Forest Legacy Revisions

The following is an overview of the process followed to develop draft changes to the Eligibility Criteria (EC) and Forest Legacy Areas (FLA) for the Assessment of Need (AON) document for the Forest Legacy program in Virginia:

Early 2007 – Virginia was notified by the US Forest Service Southern Regional office in Atlanta that changes needed to be made to the Virginia Forest Legacy program to reduce the FLA to less that the entire geographic area of the state.

February - August, 2007 – The Department of Forestry (DOF) decided to update the EC for the program in draft form, and to use the new draft EC to redefine the FLA for the program. Plans were made to offer the draft information (both EC and FLA) for public comment on the DOF website and also via email statewide to land conservation groups.

A comparison of the prior EC, and the draft revised EC, is shown below:

2000 AON Eligibility Criteria

2007 DRAFT Eligibility Criteria

Threatened by conversion to non-forest use
Conserve timber production capacity
Habitat for threatened and endangered species
Serve as a buffer for riparian protection
Preserve historic and cultural resources
Encourage preservation of scenic vistas

Threatened by conversion to non-forest use (fragmentation and reduction in linkages)
Continued production of timber and other forest commodities (local and regional economic base)
Consideration of natural heritage resources (e.g. natural communities, habitat for threatened and endangered species, significant geologic features)
Watershed values (water quality, wetlands, riparian buffers, groundwater recharge, public water supplies)

September, 2007 – DOF GIS personnel used the following models during the GIS analysis process:

Data layers:

streams, shorelines, and floodplain forests – created Euclidean distance model for NHD data and overlaid stream buffers up to 500 meters with forested wetlands
forests in headwaters and steep slopes – ran Euclidean distance model on watershed boundary dataset (used boundary lines between watersheds) and overlaid with slopes >= 25%
forest protecting drinking water supplies – used surface water protection areas provided by DOH
large continuous blocks of forest – used VANLA (Virginia Natural Landscape Assessment) data and extracted forests with at least 100 acres of interior conditions
sustainable, managed working forests – used forest economic model developed by DOF – based on woodland soil productivity, forest types, and economic value of timber
index of terrestrial integrity – based on NLCD 2001 data; area of natural cover, river-stream corridor, area of roads, and imperviousness:

a. Index of terrestrial integrity = (0.75 * Nat Cov) + (0.25 * River/Stream) – (0.25 * Road area) – (0.25 * Imperviousness)

7. index of aquatic integrity - Greg Garman of the Center for Environmental Studies and Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University provided Modified Index of Biotic Integrity (mIBI) for the sixth order hydrologic units of the Virginia Chesapeake Bay watershed.
The mIBI is computed from six metrics that are used to determine watershed biotic integrity across broad spatial scales:
Number of intolerant species
Native species richness
Number of RTE species
Number of non-indigenous species
Number of Critical/Significant species
Number of Tolerant Species

8. Threat of Forest Conversion – based on Theobald’s housing density model

September, 2007 – DOF GIS personnel, using equal weights for the four draft EC as shown in the table below, ranked the Conservation Values for the entire state on a 1 to 12 scale as shown in the map below:

Forest Legacy Eligibility Criteria

GIS Data Layers	1)Threatened by Conversion	2)Timber & Other Forest Commodities	3)Natural Heritage Resources	4)Watershed Values	% weight
Streams, shorelines, & floodplain forests	-	-	2	2	4
Forests in headwaters & steep slopes	-	-	-	3	3
Forest protecting drinking water supplies	-	-	-	4	4
Large continuous blocks of forests	-	6	5	4	15
Sustainable, managed working forests	-	4	2	-	6
Terrestrial Integrity	-	15	4	4	23
Aquatic Integrity	-	-	12	8	20
Threat of forest conversion	25	-	-	-	25
Total	25	25	25	25	100

The following maps show the areas of the state with Conservation Index Values of 7 through 12, and 6 through 12, respectively. The areas are shown by hydrologic unit, and are broken down by Physiographic Region.

DOF decided that the following map (showing index values from 7 through 12) did not encompass an adequate area of the state to be considered as the draft new FLA for Virginia

DOF decided that the following map (showing index values from 6 through 12) was the area of the state that should be considered for the draft new FLA for Virginia, and presented for public input.

October, 2007 – DOF publicized the draft EC and the draft FLA via its Website and via email to land conservation groups across the state.

January, 2008 – Public input will be summarized and considered by DOF before the new EC and FLA for Virginia are presented to the US Forest Service for approval.

Further Information

This new requirement to have FLA less than the whole will require that potential applicants submit pre-applications for review to see if any particular project falls within the FLA. DOF will review pre-applications and notify applicants if the project is located within the FLA, before the applicant goes to the time and expense of preparing a complete Legacy application.

Projects that fall partially within the FLA will be considered as in the FLA.

Also, there is a provision within the Legacy Program to make minor boundary adjustments to the FLA. If a project is presented that offers significant conservation value, but is not located within the FLA, the DOF can request US Forest Service Regional office approval of a minor FLA boundary adjustment

Additional information about this AON revision process can be found on the DOF Website at: http://www.dof.virginia.gov/mgt/flp-2008-revisions.shtml.

Last modified 2008-01-25