Mike DeBonis, executive director of the Green Mountain Club speaks at Camel’s Hump State Park in October 2024. File photo by Glenn Russell/VTDigger Vermonters trek state forests, set up camp at state parks and hunt and fish in wildlife management areas on the sprawling 375,000 acres of the lan ds the Agency of Natural Resources manages in Vermont.  Now, proposed rules governing the management of those state lands are up for public comment until June 18.  The rules will help adopt a blueprint for how the state manages its lands and forests for years to come, with an emphasis on old growth forests. The rules will set a path for combating invasive species and trail maintenance, for instance. But some worry that the new rules may not provide enough information to the public or opportunity to participate. Hannah Phillips, state lands administration program manager with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, said the agency is trying to “consider and balance the multiple uses” for state land as well as “to develop efficiencies in planning,” she said.    Under the proposed rules, the agency would create a new statewide plan that would include routine maintenance practices, such as removing hazardous trees or mowing roadsides, with public feedback. The proposed rules were submitted in April to the Secretary of State’s office.  Phillips said the plan would not require the state to create long range management plans for areas that only need routine maintenance. This is one of the “major time savers” in the proposal, Phillips said. The new rules would apply to the nearly 240,000 acres of state forests and parks overseen by the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation and over 135,000 acres of wildlife management areas, pond access areas or other land owned by the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, as well as lands near dams overseen by the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation. The Agency of Natural Resources, which includes those state departments, would also create special areas managed for old growth forests under the proposed rules, Phillips said. The idea, Phillips said, is to actively manage certain forest areas to be healthier and on an “old forest trajectory.” Nick Bennette, executive director of the Vermont Mountain Biking Association said he believes  the state wide plan will help streamline trail maintenance including Perry Hill in Waterbury and the Howe Block trail network in Waitsfield. His association works with the state on maintaining trail networks. He added that he hopes the new plans will make clear how public feedback will be taken into account. The rules could represent a major shift in the oversight of public lands, but the proposal is “pretty bare bones right now,” said Zack Porter, executive director of Standing Trees, a public lands and forest protection advocacy organization. Porter is also concerned that annual plans, growing out of long range goals, could be made without public input. He also worries that long term plans may be extended without public comment.  “The actual decisions are going to happen later behind closed doors,” Porter said. “What if the science changes, or what if conditions change on the ground, and there’s some reason to do something different from what the plan said?”  Mike Covey, executive director of Vermont Traditions Coalition, which advocates for a wide range of land uses like forestry, farming and hunting, has a different take. Covey said he supports the state adopting policies to streamline land management, which he hopes will bring about more timber harvest projects. The state is well positioned to log land with the goal of creating diverse habitats for wildlife, including promoting early successional and young forests, Covey said.  “We need to be facilitating timber harvest,” he said. “Our public lands are the place to do that.” Agency spokesperson, Stephanie Brackin, said in a statement that timber harvest protocol does not currently change under the state’s proposed rules.  Ken Gagnon, owner of Gagnon Lumber in Pittsford which has purchased and harvested timber from state lands in a bidding process, said he is concerned that the public engagement requirements will gum up the process for active forest management on state lands and give more weight to those with more free time. Gagnon said administering the proposed public process could lead to more state resources going to planning rather than action, leading to fewer timber harvests overall. Gagnon said he would also like to see the state designate early successional and young growth forests as a priority in addition to promoting old growth forest. Jennifer Byrne, a member of the Environmental Justice Advisory Council created by Vermont’s Environmental Justice Law of 2022, said that both the rulemaking process and the public process outlined in the rules going forward have not met the law’s standard for “meaningful participation.”  The Agency of Natural Resources should provide information during presentations in plain language instead of technical jargon, she said. Byrne also wanted the state to open meetings up for dialogue so the public has more of a voice in land management decisions. Byrne said she is also concerned about the state’s plan for “invasive species management and eradication” to fall within the list of routine actions. It is possible to contain invasive species, Byrne said, but eradication is a high bar, and could lead to the state spreading herbicides and pesticides without public awareness or input.  The state followed the Administrative Procedures Act guidelines, offering four in-person and one virtual meeting in June, and people can express accessibility concerns to the agency’s environmental justice program, wrote Brackin. The state will provide responses to public comments and submit a final rule for consideration near the year’s end unless the process is extended, according to Brackin. Read the story on VTDigger here: Public weighs in on roadmap for state land planning. ...read more read less