Virginia Forest Legacy Program
Assessment of Need (AON)
Request for Land Conservation Target Areas
Draft changes to the Forest Legacy Program in Virginia, and to the Assessment of Need (AON) document for the program, have been available for public review and comment over the past several months. Based on the information and suggestions received, the Department of Forestry (DOF) has decided to consider the target areas of land conservation groups within Virginia for inclusion in the draft changes to the Forest Legacy Areas (FLA) presented for federal approval.
DOF is requesting that land trusts, land conservation organizations, state agencies, planning districts, and other interested groups submit shape files or geodatabase files of their targeted areas by Friday, February 15.
Target areas that:
- are predominantly forested,
- meet the criteria below, and
- are submitted as described, will be considered for inclusion in the draft FLA.
DRAFT Eligibility Criteria
- 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)
The draft FLA submitted for federal approval will include those areas of the state that ranked highly in the GIS analysis plus, in areas of the state that did not rank highly, approved target areas.
- Deadline: Friday, February 15, 2008.
- Submit files to: Larry
Mikkelson.
- Files exceeding 10 MB in size must be submitted on CD or DVD to Larry Mikkelson, Virginia Department of Forestry, 900 Natural Resources Drive, Suite 800, Charlottesville, VA 22903
- GIS questions? Contact John Scrivani.
- Comments, questions, or concerns? Contact: Larry Mikkelson.
Additional information
Further information about the process may be found at the following addresses:
Process l Revisions.
Last modified 2008-01-30