Vermont Natural Resources Council

Stewardship Roadmap for Vermont Forest Landowners

Click here to access the PDF version of the Stewardship Roadmap for Vermont Forest Landowners

Congratulations on being a forest landowner and owning a piece of Vermont forestland!

Owning forestland can feel exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. This roadmap is intended to support your unique journey as a landowner, focusing first on what matters most to you, so you can make confident, informed decisions about your forestland. You have the opportunity to maintain an important part of the Vermont landscape, the privately owned parcels that make up more than 80% of our forested landscape and provide so many important benefits to us all. Practicing forest stewardship can help you achieve your goals and benefit the health and long-term viability of your forest, wildlife, water quality, and so much more.

What do you value most about your forestland?
Get to know your forestland better
Learn about stewardship opportunities and strategies
Take advantage of helpful resources
Get started with an action step

What do you value most about your forestland?

Start out by identifying what you value about your forest, such as what is important to you about it, and what you hope to achieve in the future based on your interests. It is okay if you do not yet know; this roadmap can help you understand your options and develop concrete goals to inform your stewardship decisions.

Keep in mind that you can achieve a number of diverse goals, even at the same time. These include:

Protecting and improving wildlife habitat
Protecting and improving forest health
Creating and enhancing recreational access and opportunities
Generating periodic income from activities like timber harvesting or sap collection
Managing for flood resilience and protecting clean water
Developing a long-term plan to maintain your forestland beyond your ownership
And so much more!

Once you have your values and goals identified, write them out and use them as a reference to guide your stewardship decisions.

Get to know your forestland better

Now that you own forestland, one of the best next steps is to build your relationship with your land, which includes learning about what you have in order to make informed stewardship decisions. For example, you may want to know about the following:

What are the boundaries of your land?
What type of wildlife is using your land?
Do you have unique habitats or ecological natural communities on your land?
Are there any rare, threatened, or endangered species on your land?
Do you have invasive species present on your land?
What water resources do you have (wetlands, streams, etc.) and what is their condition?
What types of trees do you have and what is the health of your forest?

To help determine what you have, you should identify any existing management plans, inventories, or agreements that relate to management or conservation of your land. For example:

Take a birdseye view of your property. Use Google Earth, or online tools available at the Agency of Natural Resources (ANR) such as Vermont Biofinder or the ANR Atlas to view your parcel and many of its natural features.
Determine if you have a management plan, especially if you are enrolled in Vermont’s Use Value Appraisal Program. If you have a management plan and map, it will help you understand your forestland and any future activities that may be planned. If you don’t have a plan, it would be wise to develop one
Identify whether a natural resource professional such as a forester has an existing relationship with your parcel and talk to them to learn more about your forestland.
If you do not have a management plan, ask your county forester for guidance on how to create a forest management plan. In addition, ask your county forester for advice about who can help you, such as a consulting forester or ecologist. These professionals can help you take stock of what you have on your property (typically by conducting a natural resource inventory) and help you develop a forest management or stewardship plan.
Determine if your land or a portion of it is subject to a legally binding agreement, such as a conservation easement.
Talk to your neighbors about their experience managing their forestland to understand whether there are resources or strategies that you can share.

Once you learn more about what’s on your land, you can reevaluate if any of your values or goals have changed.

Learn about stewardship opportunities and strategies

There are many strategies to help you steward your land in a responsible way. Based on your values and goals, determine which strategies are aligned with your interests, and many of these can be implemented on your land. You can blend different options; you don’t have to choose just one approach.

Some critical stewardship questions include:

Do you want to plan for future development or keep your forest or even a portion of it undeveloped into the future?
Do you want to lower the cost of owning forestland?
Do you want to actively manage all or part of your forest, or let nature take its course? Learn about the benefits and limitations of each of these broad options and how you might even employ both.

Are you interested in keeping your forest intact and undeveloped?

Long-term, durable land conservation strategies are extremely beneficial for maintaining the long-term integrity of your forest. Depending on the strategy, land conservation mechanisms can lower the cost of owning forestland.
- Conservation easements are legally binding agreements that allow you to maintain ownership while restricting certain land uses such as future development. Easements can be tailored to meet your needs, and there are tax benefits for placing an easement on your land. Depending on the organization holding the easement, you can conserve your forestland as working or wild forest.
- By enrolling in Vermont’s Use Value Appraisal Program, you can lower your property taxes as long as you keep your land undeveloped in accordance with a forest management plan.
- Carbon management agreements provide financial incentives including direct per-acre payments for landowners who manage their land to store and sequester carbon and mitigate the effects of climate change. These agreements typically run for a certain period of time and help to keep forests intact.

Are you interested in making sure your forest has a steward that will promote your values well into the future?

Planning the future ownership and management of your land is an important part of forest stewardship.

Legacy planning, or succession planning, allows landowners to plan for the future ownership and stewardship of their land in a way that aligns with their goals, values, and objectives.
There are professionals that can help you with succession planning and explain the benefits of different approaches for structuring the future ownership of your land.
Developing a forest management or stewardship plan is also an important way to plan future stewardship activities with the assistance of a natural resource professional.

Are you interested in maintaining the health of your forest while promoting the use and enjoyment of your land?

Forest stewardship strategies include a wide range of practices that can advance your goals and maintain the overall health of your forestland.

Wildlife-oriented stewardship includes protecting habitat, creating new habitat for wildlife species that are found on and around your land, promoting the overall biodiversity on your land, and reducing wildlife conflict such as nuisance bear behaviors.
Ecological restoration includes managing invasive species, improving water quality, managing erosion, protecting wetlands, and maintaining riparian buffers.
Climate change adaptation includes improving the resilience of your forest, promoting and planting climate resilient trees, and improving carbon storage and sequestration opportunities.
Timber management can address forest health issues, improve the diversity of tree species and ages of stands, and generate periodic income to landowners through the harvesting of trees for forest products that can be used for building material, firewood, and other local uses. Such management can also increase and enhance non-timber benefits and biodiversity.
Recreation strategies include trail development, maintaining public access, and partnering with local trail organizations to promote sound stewardship and uses and minimize user conflict.
Passive management strategies include allowing nature to take its course on your land. Over time, natural disturbances will influence the composition of your forest. With this approach, there is still a value to managing certain issues, such as non-native invasive species, recreation impacts, and water quality issues.

Once you have identified the strategies that meet your interests and values, utilize the resources and action steps that are listed in the following sections.

Take advantage of resources

There are so many excellent free resources available – and certainly too many partners, programs, and publications to list here. Please refer to Appendix 3 of the Stewardship Guide for Vermont Forest Landowners for a more comprehensive overview of these resources, or reach out to the organizations mentioned at the end of this roadmap.

To learn more about the diverse strategies for forestland stewardship and conservation, and the many organizations, agencies and natural resource professionals that can assist you with your decisions, read the Stewardship Guide for Vermont Forest Landowners
To learn about how to plan for the long-term viability of your forest read For the Future of Your Forest: A Vermont Landowner’s Guide to Woodland Legacy Planning
To learn about how Vermont’s Use Value Appraisal Program works, or to develop a forest management plan, call your county forester, or talk to a licensed consulting forester.
Explore the resources available for wildlife stewardship through the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department.

Choose an action step to get started

Use this checklist as a guide to implement the strategies listed above. Most importantly, try not to get overwhelmed! You can start by choosing one action step to begin your stewardship journey.

Peruse the Stewardship Guide for Vermont Forest Landowners.
Write down what you love about your land and what you hope to accomplish on it.
Determine if you have a forest or other management plan.
Determine if a natural resource professional like a forester already has a relationship with your land.
Educate yourself about the many organizations and agencies that can help you with your land stewardship decisions.
Reach out to a natural resource professional(s) to help you with your stewardship decisions. (e.g. county forester or wildlife biologist).
Attend a landowner workshop, webinar, or training to learn about stewardship opportunities and strategies – and meet other forestland owners.
Determine whether you would like to reduce your property taxes by enrolling in Vermont’s Use Value Appraisal Program.
Conduct an ecological inventory of your land if you do not have one.
Develop a management or stewardship plan if you do not have one.
Determine whether you would like to pursue financial incentives through a carbon management agreement.
Determine whether you would like to conserve your land and talk to a land trust if you would like to learn more.
Develop a successional plan to promote the long-term ownership of your land.

This roadmap was developed by a partnership or organizations that are committed to assisting forestland owners in Vermont. Please reach out to any of these organizations for more information.