Forestry for the Bay Featured at Conference in Pennsylvania

August 2008 --The Alliance for the Chesapeake Bay’s Forestry for the Bay (FFB) program was featured at the recent Pennsylvania Forest Stewards (PaFS) annual meeting held in Bradford County, located in mountainous north central Pennsylvania near the New York border.

Forestry for the Bay -- a free, voluntary program for small- and medium-sized landowners interested in actively conserving or restoring their woodland property -- was introduced to the forest stewards during the meeting’s keynote address. The 110 PaFS participants were commended for their stewardship and for promoting actions that benefit the Chesapeake watershed.

From protecting water and cleaning air to providing wildlife habitat and controlling flooding, forests provide more benefits to the Chesapeake than any other land use. Forests are still the dominate landscape in Pennsylvania and other Bay watershed states, but have been declining at an alarming rate due to development. The land that remains forested is comprised of increasingly smaller lots owned by a diverse group of private owners. For example, Pennsylvania has more than 500,000 forest landowners, a majority of whom own less than 10 acres.

The PaFS program, which is sponsored by Penn State’s Cooperative Extension Service, provides 40 hours of free sustainable forest management training to any private woodland owner in Pennsylvania. These landowners, in turn, agree to provide 40 hours of volunteer outreach to other Pennsylvania landowners to spread sound woodland management practices throughout the commonwealth. During 2007, PaFS program participants donated more than 43,800 volunteer hours -- the equivalent of 22 full-time employees -- and reached more than 19,500 clients.

Forestry for the Bay, which is designed to complement PaFS, Maryland Woodland Stewards and other forest programs in the watershed, was offered as a tool for the stewards to use when providing their volunteer outreach. The Forestry for the Bay website brings landowners together and provides them with technical and financial incentive resources to help manage their woodland.