Vermont state lands manager describes long-range forest planning, timber harvests and climate work

Jim Duncan, state lands manager with the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, told the Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry Committee that his 19-person program leads planning and implementation for the agency’s state-owned forests and supports forest work on state parks and wildlife management areas.

“The state lands staff is focused on fee ownership primarily,” Duncan said, noting the department manages about 239,000 acres in fee and that the agency’s work extends from acquisition and planning through implementation and post-project review. “We are a small but mighty team of about 19 people,” he added.

Duncan said the department uses long-range management plans (LRMPs) to allocate uses and management intensity across parcels, then develops annual stewardship plans and project-level reviews to develop prescriptions and permit work. He described an interdisciplinary review process that includes ecology, fisheries, wildlife, historic resources, wetlands and bat surveys before a timber sale or other project proceeds.

Why it matters: The presentation explains how state ownership, public-use expectations and multiple resource goals shape forestry decisions on Vermont’s public lands and the safeguards the department uses before allowing timber operations or other active management.

Duncan described what the agency calls “active forest management,” a range of vegetation treatments that include timber harvests, invasive-plant treatments, creation or maintenance of wildlife features, open-field maintenance and non‑commercial stand treatments. He said timber harvests are one tool among many and are not proposed to maximize revenue. “Timber harvests are a really effective tool in our tool belt for a number of reasons,” he said. “Outpay revenue never drives the proposal of the timber harvest on state lands.”

Scale and recent activity: Over the last five years, Duncan said the program offered 27 timber sales and averaged about 200 acres of harvest boundary a year, with average annual revenue of about $148,000 (range varies by year and site). He said the program has carried out more than 200 non‑commercial projects in the last five years — from hazard-tree removal to timber-stand improvement — and has established three climate change adaptation research sites, with a fourth site planned.

Planning and review steps: Long-range management plans set landscape goals and management categories (Duncan described categories as highly sensitive, special management, general management and intensive management). He said about 35% of state acreage is covered by an active LRMP, roughly 10–15% is in progress, about 10% is newly acquired or without a plan and the remainder either has exhausted implementation actions or needs plan updates.

At the project level, Duncan said foresters perform a course-level inventory, then a presale inventory for harvest units. Each proposed harvest receives ecological review (including rare-species and natural-community screening), bat acoustic surveys where relevant, historic-resources review and any wetlands or permitting reviews required. After prescription development, the department issues a prospectus to bidders, awards a contract to the highest qualified bidder, provides on-site oversight during operations and requires contract closeout and reporting.

Benefits and constraints: Duncan said properly planned harvests can advance restoration goals — for example, accelerating recovery from past land clearing, improving age-class and structural diversity, reducing invasive plants, and enhancing wildlife habitat and climate resilience. He also described using sale terms and deductions to accomplish non-timber work while a logger is on site — for example, road rehabilitation, donated firewood to wood banks and habitat improvements funded through timber receipts.

Infrastructure and recreation: State lands contain hundreds of miles of roads and trails and nearly 300 parking areas, Duncan said, and the department has invested Clean Water Fund dollars to upgrade roads and crossings. He described adding large woody material to streams to restore channel complexity and protect cold-water fisheries, and noted the agency maintains historic resources such as CCC-era camps, shelters and eight historic fire towers on state lands.

Questions from committee members focused on details of climate adaptation trials, the mix of management categories on landscapes such as the Worcester Range, coordination with utilities for rights-of-way and how leases (for example, ski-area trails) interact with Act 250 and the department’s review. On climate-adaptation research, Duncan described “enrichment plantings” to test assisted regeneration on sites with difficult natural regeneration and said results will take time.

Duncan said the department coordinates with other agencies — notably the Department of Fish and Wildlife, Department of Environmental Conservation and the State Historic Preservation Office — and with external partners including Audubon chapters and university researchers.

Ending: The committee and Duncan noted the department would appear again for the upcoming budget presentation; he said additional staffing and planning funding under pending sources would help accelerate long-range planning and implementation.