Assessment and Mapping Considerations

Identifying the Role Forests Play in Your Community

Consider the role forests play in your community when conducting your assessment, including potential economic, ecological, or community building contributions or attributes. The following assessment suggestions can be adapted to identify the specific role forests play in your community.

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ISSUES AND OPPORTUNITIES ELEMENT

• Describe the trends in forest ownership and forest landowner demographics (including age, ownership, values) for your community over the last few decades.

• Assess public perception of local forestry practices including local community members, second homeowners, tourists and recreationists.

HOUSING ELEMENT

• Identify the status and benefits of urban trees to your community including the benefits of urban trees to housing structures, storm water run-off, heating and cooling benefits, carbon sequestering, and increased property values.

• Map housing developments over time with the fragmentation of forested parcels and identify resulting patterns or important trends.

• Map existing and future housing development and overlay with areas that are at risk of wildfire.

TRANSPORTATION ELEMENT

• Assess the state of and importance of trail systems in your community.

• Assess the forest recreational needs and activities of your community and identify how this might contribute to the local economy.

• Identify current truck routes and assess road weight limits as well as those in adjacent towns to see if they accommodate logging vehicles and other heavy equipment of forest product companies that contribute to your local economy.

• Map existing transportation infrastructure with current or potential forest legacy lands, county forest, forest tax law lands (e.g. Manged Forest Law), state forest, or other public forests.

• Asses the current status and management of street trees and trees in the right of way.
  

UTILITIES AND COMMUNITY FACILITIES ELEMENT

• Assess the preparedness of local fire stations in the event of a forest fire including training, equipment, and facilities.

• Identify the role forests play in protecting groundwater and surface water.

• Map existing utility infrastructure and overlay with forest cover.

AGRICULTURE, NATURAL, AND CULTURAL RESOURCES ELEMENT

• Describe the "forest character" of your town using community input. Include visual aesthetics, how it affects your local economy and cultural integration.

• Identify your community's forestland by forest cover type and determine acres of forest land over time.

• Identify and map your community's forest land by ownership including local, county, state, national, private non-industrial, or private industrial, and describe trends over time.

• Identify existing significant natural features (unusual botanical communities, buffers along perennial streams, etc.). Include threatened, cultural, and economically significant lands (i.e. pine barrens).

• Identify and map forests that are a defining feature of viewsheds or vistas.

• Identify and map forest disturbance occurrence over time in your community including fire, insect and disease outbreaks, as well as storm events.

• Identify and map any environmental/forest corridors along streams, wetlands, and lakeshores.

• Assess the local area fire history, seasonal weather patterns, vegetation characteristics, and human causes of forest fires to identify your community's risk of forest fire.

• Assess the current standards for addressing forest fires in your community, specifically those areas in the wildland urban interface.

• Assess the status of your urban forest resource, including canopy cover and species distribution.

• Identify important forest-dependent wildlife species (game and non-game), and the forest habitat that supports them.

• Identify any potentially devastating invasive or exotic species currently affecting your community or that may affect your community in the future.

• Identify water quality and quantity issues and map forest cover in groundwater recharge areas.

• Identify water resource issues relative to forest fragmentation, deforestation, and land development.

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ELEMENT

• Identify and map local and regional forest product employment centers and the importance to local, regional and state economies.

• Consider the economic value of forested areas in terms of revenues and describe trends over time. Include forest products and forest-based recreation.

• Assess the cost of community services needed for forest land compared with other uses.

• Identify the trends in forest sales off tax records.

• Identify existing business or industry centers dependent on forests for forest products and or recreation.

• Identify and map the number of primary and secondary forest products companies.

• Determine the capital expenditures by forest-resource based industries
  

• Identify current and future demands for forest-based recreation opportunities and their contribution to local and regional economies.

• Identify non-timber forest products important to your community (e.g. birch bark, berries, etc) and the economic benefits.

• Consider the local, regional, and global issues that face the forest products industry and take measures to make these companies competitive.

LAND USE ELEMENT

• Identify your community's forestland by forest cover type and determine acres of forest land over time.

• Identify and map your community's forestland by ownership including local, county, state, national, private non indutrial, or private industrial, and describe trends over time.

• Identify the current procedures for the use of native species in plantings and identify any potentially devastating invasive or exotic species to your community.

• Identify lands in your community enrolled in incentive-based programs including Forest and Land Legacy, Managed Forest Law, and non-profit easements.

• Examine environmental impacts of local forestry practices to achieve improved methods for protecting forestland, especially in urbanizing counties where forested cover is crucial to watershed protection and to reduction of runoff and erosion, air quality, wildlife habitat, and connectivity of natural and wildlife resources.

• Identify existing programs that assist private property owners, including businesses, in reducing forest fragmentation and parcelization.

• Assess the amount of land enrolled in a County Forest in your community and consider the benefits of maintaining those acres in forest.

INTERGOVERNMENTAL COOPERATION ELEMENT

• Identify and promote coherence between state government funding and permit decisions and adopted local land-use, agricultural preservation, open space, urban growth, watershed protection, environmental, transportation, and other plans.

• Identify intergovernmental forest fire warning and communication infrastructure between municipal, county, state, and federal emergency response resources that are in place and identify how new ones may strengthen with further investigation and mutually beneficial agreements.