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Welcome to the Virginia Department Of Forestry

Forest Legacy Program
Draft Assessment of Need Revisions

Program Overview

Virginia is a recipient of USDA Forest Service Forest Legacy Program grant funds to purchase conservation easements and to acquire properties in fee simple utilizing these federal grant funds. The purpose of the Forest Legacy Program (FLP) is to “ascertain and protect environmentally important forest areas that are threatened by conversion to nonforest uses.”1

Need a close-up map? Contact: Larry Mikkelson.

The program was first approved for Virginia in January, 2001 and has provided funding to help conserve Virginia’s forestlands since that date. Easements on privately-owned properties and new State Forest properties, providing public benefit, have been acquired utilizing Legacy funding.

Assessment of Need

An Assessment of Need (AON) document is required under the program. This document “contains an assessment of the forests and forest uses, a description of forces that are converting forests to nonforest uses, describes Eligibility Criteria developed by the State to identify important forest areas to be proposed as Forest Legacy Areas (FLA), and acts as a guide to implementation of FLP in the State.” 2 The first AON for Virginia defined FLA that encompassed the entire geographic area of the state. This document has been in place since 2001.

Periodic Update Required

The Legacy program requires periodic updating of the AON, and public input on revisions to the document. The first steps to update the AON, beginning in January, 2007, have been undertaken. The objectives of this current update are to:

  1. re-examine the Eligibility Criteria for the program, and
  2. redefine the FLA, based on the new Eligibility Criteria, to concentrate the available funding on areas that are most in need of conservation. These revisions will be effective for the FY 2010 program year, and the five years thereafter.

Revised Eligibility Criteria

The Eligibility Criteria for the Forest Legacy Program were considered by the Forest Legacy Subcommittee (FLSC) during its January, 2007 meeting, confirmed by the State Forest Stewardship Coordinating Committee (SFSCC) at its March, 2007 meeting, and approved by the State Forester in March, 2007. The newly defined criteria (in draft form pending public input) are as follows:

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

New Forest Legacy Areas (FLA) and Project Application Acceptance

Based on the recommendation of the two committees (FLSC, SFSCC), and the approval of the State Forester, the new criteria were subjected to GIS analysis using various models and tools during July and August, 2007 to derive new FLA for Virginia. These areas are currently in draft form pending public input. The GIS analysis weighted the four criteria equally, and ranked the land area of the entire state according to conservation values from 1 to 12, using hydrologic unit as the defining geographic unit. The State Forester, after consultation with agency forest management staff, proposed that the new FLA include areas of the state having conservation values of 6 or greater. The map above shows the draft FLA for the state. The total area of the proposed FLA is 15.8 million acres, of which 11.7 million acres are forested. Legacy applications will be accepted that fall, wholly or partially, within the boundaries of the new FLA.

Additional Information

Read additional information about the process to develop the draft revisions to the program.

1,2 Source: Forest Legacy Program Implementation Guidelines, June 30, 2003

Last modified 2008-01-28