May 31, 2008

Commentary

By George Gay

After months and months of discussion and debate, Congress has overwhelmingly passed the Farm Bill. Much has been made of this legislation's likely impact on certain agricultural subsidies, food stamp programs, and alternative energy research and development. But, there's another story to tell. And, it's a classic Green Mountain success story.

Thanks to the leadership of Vermont's Sens. Patrick Leahy and Bernard Sanders and Rep. Peter Welch, the Farm Bill will provide an unprecedented level of targeted support to help enhance our communities and promote our forest-oriented businesses and outdoor heritage.

Due to our delegation's foresight and determination, the Farm Bill contains the visionary Community Forest and Open Space Conservation Program that provides new matching funds to help towns purchase forested open spaces that are close to home and important to local residents. The grant program will be open to any Vermont community and comes with technical assistance in forest management from the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks, and Recreation.

And, in response to the rapidly shrinking amount of private land open to hunting and fishing, lands purchased with funds from this program will remain open and accessible to sportsmen and sportswomen. This program will provide a much needed foundation for Vermont's nationally renowned town forest movement.

The new Community Wood Energy Program, championed by Welch in the House in partnership with two other freshman members of the Northern Forest delegation, Reps. Paul Hodes (D-N.H.) and Michael Arcuri (D-N.Y.), provides grants and technical assistance to help communities shift heating and power for municipal buildings from fossil-fuel systems to wood chip and biomass systems. The program will give communities the incentives they need to construct, in an open and collaborative process, a "community wood energy plan" to identify how the new biomass systems can be fueled by local lands and the local forest products industry, keeping more resources in local communities and reducing their carbon impact.

Community-scale biomass can be a huge money saver for local budgets and an effective vehicle to reconnect Vermonters to the forested landscape. Unfortunately, many Vermont communities cannot afford the start-up and transition costs of moving to biomass energy and rebuilding a community-wide link to the woods. As a result, the cost savings and community enrichments that could be earned are out of reach.

This program will provide 50-50 matching grants to purchase biomass energy systems for municipal buildings and construct "start up" management plans to use the local forests to feed the new systems while insuring that appropriate forest stewardship practices are in place.

Importantly for Vermonters, the Farm Bill continues to provide essential support for private forest owners and communities through the Forest Stewardship Program, Urban and Community Forestry Program, cooperative extension forestry programs, which will, among other things, provide new funding to develop a cutting-edge statewide forest management plan to guide forest stewardship in Vermont.

The Farm Bill also provides increased funding to help landowners and municipalities manage their land through programs like the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program, and Healthy Forest Reserve Program. These programs will provide the economic incentives needed to enable private forest owners to manage their lands to sequester carbon, provide habitat for threatened and endangered species, or enhance water quality.

It is impossible to thank the Vermont delegation enough for effectively promoting the forest oriented interests of Vermonters and people across the northern forest. The inclusion of well-funded forestry and community development programs in the Farm Bill will help Vermont retain its forestlands and provide much needed resilience for local communities that are addressing the almost overwhelming economic, natural resource, and cultural challenges of our times.

George Gay is executive director of the Northern Forest Alliance, based in Stowe.