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Forest Legacy Program in Florida...
Forestlands not only supply timber products, but also provide wildlife habitat, watershed protection, and recreation and aesthetic values. The rapid development of Florida’s forest areas to non-forest uses poses an ever-increasing threat to maintaining the state's valuable forestlands. Fragmentation and parcelization across our state is resulting in the loss of these valuable ecosystems and the biological, economic and social values they provide.
About 750 people move to the state every day and more and more forests are converted to non-forest uses. Each day about 240 acres of Florida’s forests disappear. How much and which forests should we conserve for our children and their children? The Forest Legacy Program can help us do that by complimenting the state’s existing conservation programs, including the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program.
The Forest Legacy Program (FLP) is a US Forest Service (USFS) grant program whose purpose is to protect environmentally important forest areas that are threatened by conversion to non forest uses and, through the use of voluntary conservation easements and fee simple purchases, to promote forestland protection and other conservation opportunities. The Florida Division of Forestry (DOF), as lead agency, is responsible for administering the program, identifying potential projects, and monitoring conservation easements.
Florida's Assessment of Need (AON) which contains an assessment of the forests and forest uses, a description of forces that are converting forests to non-forest 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 was approved by the US Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns on April 11, 2005.
Florida received $493,000 to help fund its first Forest Legacy purchase (2005 Forest Legacy List). The tract of important forestland is part of the St. Johns River Water Management District’s Newnan’s Lake project, and was acquired jointly by the water management district and Alachua County.
Florida has a project submitted by the St. Johns River Water Management District on the 2007 President's List that was submitted to Congress in February, 2006. If sufficient funding for Forest Legacy is authorized by Congress this year, Florida will receive up to $2,250,000 in Forest Legacy funds to assist in the purchase of the Bull Creek Tract in the Northeast Florida Timberlands Project.
The Division of Forestry, as lead agency for Forest Legacy is seeking public agency partners for future Forest Legacy projects. Forest Legacy Project proposals applications for the next federal budget cycle are now being accepted. Potential public partners and the general public with questions may contact Mr. Ed Kuester, Forest Legacy Coordinator, at (850) 414-9929.
Contact:
Ed Kuester
Florida Division of Forestry
3125 Conner Blvd. Tallahassee, FL 32399-1650
Phone: 850/414-9929
FAX: 850/ 921-6724
Email: kuestee@doacs.state.fl.us |
