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I'm gonna talk about old forests

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that we have now in the state

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and then the future of old forests.

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Old forests that we might never see

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but will be out there someday.

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And I just wanna start by talking

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about what is an old forest.

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And I think there's a
lot of different concepts

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around the idea of old forests,

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and particularly the
concept of old growth.

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And old-growth forests that
maybe have never been disturbed

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in hundreds and hundreds of years,

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they're almost as much a social concept

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as they are a scientific concept.

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And it's just a very complex one,

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and it's too much for me to think about.

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And we just don't really
have much true old growth

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in Vermont.

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So I like to think about old forests.

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Forests that have been operating
under natural processes

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for a significant amount of time.

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Say, 150 years is a good cutoff.

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They're biologically mature,

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they have their natural
species composition,

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and they often, but not always,

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have evidence of natural
disturbance processes,

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regeneration, lots of
structure, dead and downed wood,

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tip-ups, and minimal evidence
of past human interference.

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Old forests are rare in Vermont.

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And I had to make my slides

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before I could actually
pull together the numbers.

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So this is here.

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But we have in Vermont I think

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about 1,900 acres of old forest tracked

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in our Natural Heritage database.

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I'm gonna come back to that.

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But that's just to give you a sense

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of how rare old forests are in the state.

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But rather than just numbers,

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I thought it would be fun
to look at some pictures

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of old forests and just think

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about the range of old
forests we have now.

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And one of them is this forest
near Silver Lake and Barnard.

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70 acres of hemlock-northern
hardwood forest.

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Big trees, rich soils,

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so you get species like
orchis spectabilis.

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And then there's high-elevation forests,

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like this one on Blue Ridge Mountain,

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in the Green Mountain National Forest.

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Montane, yellow birch, red
spruce forest 600-plus acres up

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on this mountain that, until recently,

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when they were discovered
during inventories conducted

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by Aaron Marcus, no one really appreciated

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that there was this very large area

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of old forest up on that mountain.

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And then there's what I think
of as atypical old forests,

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because they don't develop old trees

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or some of those structures,

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but cliffs and cliff brows or swamps.

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And these red cedar woodlands
are a great example of that.

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And they might be some of
our oldest trees in Vermont.

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This is from work that
Matt Peters completed,

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Matt's sitting here in the audience,

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coring some of these red cedars

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and finding very old trees.

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On the Austin Hill trees,

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almost 300 years old.

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That's trees going back to 1734.

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And then from this private
land site that we visited

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and found this downed wood

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and cut a slice of a
445-year-old tree lying

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on the ground there.

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Probably reflective of those twisted,

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gnarly trees growing on the cliffs.

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So there's a wide variety of old forests

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that we have in the state.

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It's been a priority

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of the Vermont Natural Heritage Inventory

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of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department

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to find and describe and map
more of these occurrences

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of old forest.

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And that's work that I've been working on

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and others have been
contributing to as well.

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They're not easily found.

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So it's a combination of
using anecdotal evidence

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and things like lidar
mapping to find tall trees

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that might indicate old undisturbed sites.

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So again, that's where we're going out,

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we're identifying them,

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and actually working on
developing a model of old forests

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with the Wildlands Network.

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Alex Vanko, who's shown there,

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has been crunching our existing
Natural Heritage polygons

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of old forest and trying
to come up with a map

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that could predict places to go focus on.

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It's using all those variables.

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It's an iterative process,

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and we're working on refining it.

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But it's an exciting thing to think

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that maybe we could have some
ability to narrow the focus

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of where we look for old forests.

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We're putting these

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into the Vermont Natural
Heritage database,

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which is the database that
tracks our rare species

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and significant natural communities.

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And that's where that
number of 1,900 acres

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of old forest comes from.

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But it's only 51 different examples.

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And I know that there are more out there.

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I know that there are people in this room

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who probably know about other old forests

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that aren't yet in that database.

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And so partly this is
just an effort to compile,

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really, I think for the first time,

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even though there's so much
known about a lot of old forests

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in Vermont, I don't know
that it's all compiled

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and mapped in one place.

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And so this is really
the effort to do that.

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And I hope that those numbers
will continue to go up.

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But they still represent a very
small portion of the state:

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almost 2,000 acres out of
4 million acres of forest.

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And we know that old forests are valuable

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for all sorts of reasons.

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The complex structures,
the habitat diversity,

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the soils, the carbon storage.

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And so the idea of restoring
old forests is a key part

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of having an ecologically
functional landscape in Vermont.

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And so thinking about future
old forests in the state.

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And we have Vermont Conservation Design,

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which is an overall vision

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for an ecologically functional
landscape in Vermont.

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Having a landscape that's
intact, connected, and diverse.

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And it comes from the mission

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of the Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department.

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And I don't really have
time to go into all of this,

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but it's a coarse filter
conservation design

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at multiple scales,

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using coarse filter
features to meet the needs

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of many, many individual species.

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Something like 20 to
40,000 different species

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that we have in Vermont.

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And old forests are one key coarse filter

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that's a part of Vermont
Conservation Design.

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Along with young forests, too,

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I should mention even though
they're not the focus of this.

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But it's really thinking about both ends

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of that forest structure spectrum.

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In Vermont Conservation Design,

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there's a target to have about 10%

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of Vermont's forest as old forest,

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to develop back into old forest,

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to reintroduce that
function to the landscape.

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At one time, it was much more
than 10% of the landscape.

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But to reintroduce it at
a scale that is meaningful

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but also practically achievable.

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And we have that target is to be divided

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across all the state's
nine biophysical regions,

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shown here, and proportional
to the matrix forest types,

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the natural community
types in that region.

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So the broad widespread forest types.

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So this is not focusing on
those cliff brows and red cedar,

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but the common northern hardwood,

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red spruce northern hardwood,

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hemlock-northern hardwood forests.

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And this is kind of way
into the weeds here,

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but Vermont Conservation Design identifies

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these highest priority
forest blocks in each region.

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And that 10% number is derived
from 15% of the matrix forest

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within all of those forest
blocks in the region.

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And when you break that
down into the numbers,

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you get what's up there for
a total of 419,000 acres.

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And again, that's meant
to be representative

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of the different natural community types.

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And we know a lot about
natural communities in Vermont,

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but we don't have a statewide map.

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We do, however, have work
done by Mark Anderson

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and Charles Ferree mapping habitat types

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across all of the northeast.

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And this crosswalks very
well to natural communities.

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Not perfectly one-to-one, but very close.

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And so we can look at those forest blocks

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and the matrix habitat types in them,

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crosswalk that to natural communities,

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and get a sense of what type
of forests are out there

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and where they are.

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Then we can take the wildlands report

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that Liz just talked about.

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For those of you who
weren't here for this talk,

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the two-sentence introduction is that the

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Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands,
& Communities Organization

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did a inventory of wildlands
across New England,

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places that will be managed to be,

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manage forever wild natural
processes, going forward.

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Places that, over time,

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will likely develop into old forests.

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We can take that information for Vermont,

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overlay it with that
statewide habitat map,

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and see how we're doing

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towards meeting those Vermont
Conservation Design targets

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for old forests.

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Not old forests we have now,

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but what will likely
become old in the future.

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And Brian Hall from the
Harvard Forest was able

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to do that analysis and
create a huge spreadsheet.

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You can't read it, it doesn't matter,

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but it's got all sorts of
overlay of habitat type,

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biophysical region, ownership type,

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whether it's wild, not wild.

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All of that's in that spreadsheet.

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And so I could run analysis, then, on that

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and start thinking about
how those numbers play out

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at the regional scale.

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The map image is an example
of a parcel overlaid

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on those habitat types.

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The takeaway, the upshot from that,

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is that in each region of the state,

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here's how we're doing

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towards having areas of future old forests

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that might meet those Vermont
Conservation Design targets.

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So the two colors, green and
blue, both represent wildlands.

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The green is wildlands
that are managed to be wild

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but not permanently protected.

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The blue is areas that are
more strongly protected

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with more confidence in their longevity.

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This is all still ownership,
but not necessarily.

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It's not like Use Value Program.

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It's all conservation ownership,
but at varying levels.

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So some of it is like,

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administrative designations
of agency lands in the green,

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which theoretically could be changed,

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but are unlikely to be changed.

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So the big takeaway from this:

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Can you read the biophysical
region names, I hope?

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Those two really long bars with the blue,

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those are the mountains,
the Green Mountains.

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Northern and southern Green Mountains.

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And we have a lot of future old forests

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up high in the mountains.

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And as much as I love places like this,

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this is not where we
need to focus more effort

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on developing future old forests.

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We need to go down into the valleys,

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into the other natural community types

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that are not well represented
in these wildlands.

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I just wanna show that
in two examples here.

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The first is the southern Green Mountains.

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So there's that region.

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There's the target identified
in Vermont Conservation Design

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for old forests back into the landscape.

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Here's an example of a
current wildland there.

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This is the Lye Brook Wilderness.

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Beautiful spot.

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But here's another example.

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This is the Hamilton Falls Natural Area

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at Jamaica State Park

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and the Turkey Mountain Natural Area owned

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by the Nature Conservancy
in the West River Valley.

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Very different habitats

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than what you find up on the ridge

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in the Green Mountain National Forest.

261
00:11:59,220 --> 00:12:02,580
We can take all the
wildlands in the region

262
00:12:02,580 --> 00:12:04,740
and look at them by
different habitat types,

263
00:12:04,740 --> 00:12:06,640
and that's what this graph is showing.

264
00:12:07,620 --> 00:12:11,400
The green here is how the
matrix forests are distributed

265
00:12:11,400 --> 00:12:13,320
across the biophysical region,

266
00:12:13,320 --> 00:12:15,420
and the blue is how they're currently,

267
00:12:15,420 --> 00:12:18,330
or is how wildlands represent those types.

268
00:12:18,330 --> 00:12:20,970
So where the blue bar is
higher than the green,

269
00:12:20,970 --> 00:12:23,940
that habitat type is
overrepresented in wildlands.

270
00:12:23,940 --> 00:12:25,680
And where that's flipped,

271
00:12:25,680 --> 00:12:27,270
particularly where you
see those gray arrows,

272
00:12:27,270 --> 00:12:30,540
those are places where that
habitat is poorly represented,

273
00:12:30,540 --> 00:12:33,240
and more representation
of that in wildland

274
00:12:33,240 --> 00:12:37,260
to become future old forest
would help meet the targets

275
00:12:37,260 --> 00:12:38,853
of Vermont Conservation Design.

276
00:12:39,870 --> 00:12:40,800
I don't know if those are readable,

277
00:12:40,800 --> 00:12:43,680
but that's Appalachian
hemlock-northern hardwood forest

278
00:12:43,680 --> 00:12:46,530
and Laurentian-Acadian
pine-hemlock-hardwood forest.

279
00:12:46,530 --> 00:12:49,350
So lower-elevation forests.

280
00:12:49,350 --> 00:12:50,820
And just to contrast that again,

281
00:12:50,820 --> 00:12:52,680
we don't need to be up
on the mountain ridges.

282
00:12:52,680 --> 00:12:55,710
We need to be down in the
valleys looking at oak, pine,

283
00:12:55,710 --> 00:12:57,063
and hemlock forests.

284
00:12:58,650 --> 00:12:59,880
And we can look at the region

285
00:12:59,880 --> 00:13:02,883
and see where those habitats are,

286
00:13:03,810 --> 00:13:06,030
and we can also see where they aren't.

287
00:13:06,030 --> 00:13:11,030
So I've just taken the
habitats and only showing them

288
00:13:11,190 --> 00:13:13,320
within the Green Mountain National Forest.

289
00:13:13,320 --> 00:13:17,700
We could not likely meet
that target of representation

290
00:13:17,700 --> 00:13:20,190
by focusing only on adding more wildlands

291
00:13:20,190 --> 00:13:21,990
in the Green Mountain National Forest.

292
00:13:21,990 --> 00:13:25,080
We need to get out of
that into other places.

293
00:13:25,080 --> 00:13:26,910
So it's not as simple as just looking

294
00:13:26,910 --> 00:13:28,260
at currently conserved lands

295
00:13:28,260 --> 00:13:30,030
and shifting the way they're managed.

296
00:13:30,030 --> 00:13:32,700
It's really, I think, about
finding new conservation lands

297
00:13:32,700 --> 00:13:34,173
that could meet these goals.

298
00:13:36,810 --> 00:13:40,710
Lastly, I just wanna contrast
that with the Champlain Hills,

299
00:13:40,710 --> 00:13:43,293
the biophysical region
just to our northeast here.

300
00:13:45,390 --> 00:13:47,700
Smaller region, less forest,

301
00:13:47,700 --> 00:13:50,070
so there's a smaller target.

302
00:13:50,070 --> 00:13:52,383
But look at the progress there.

303
00:13:54,297 --> 00:13:56,430
The target is to have 13,000 acres

304
00:13:56,430 --> 00:13:58,260
of old forest in the future,

305
00:13:58,260 --> 00:14:00,720
and we currently have 184 acres

306
00:14:00,720 --> 00:14:03,188
that are contributing towards that.

307
00:14:03,188 --> 00:14:04,021
1.4%.

308
00:14:05,790 --> 00:14:07,650
And while there's really
cool natural areas

309
00:14:07,650 --> 00:14:10,950
in Champlain Hills, like Franklin Bog,

310
00:14:10,950 --> 00:14:12,990
I just threw this in because
it's such a great spot

311
00:14:12,990 --> 00:14:14,280
and wanted to have a photo

312
00:14:14,280 --> 00:14:15,980
at this point in the presentation,

313
00:14:18,720 --> 00:14:20,700
there really isn't much wildland.

314
00:14:20,700 --> 00:14:22,350
There really isn't that
much conserved land

315
00:14:22,350 --> 00:14:23,400
in the region to begin with.

316
00:14:23,400 --> 00:14:24,900
But here's two examples.

317
00:14:24,900 --> 00:14:27,390
There's the Lake Carmi Bog Natural Area,

318
00:14:27,390 --> 00:14:29,610
and there's a private lands easement

319
00:14:29,610 --> 00:14:31,560
in Jericho that also is,

320
00:14:31,560 --> 00:14:33,660
I believe that's a Northeast
Wilderness Trust easement

321
00:14:33,660 --> 00:14:35,520
that's contributing to that target.

322
00:14:35,520 --> 00:14:38,130
But they're small specific areas.

323
00:14:38,130 --> 00:14:39,690
And there's a long way to go.

324
00:14:39,690 --> 00:14:41,070
And it's not even worth putting up a map

325
00:14:41,070 --> 00:14:43,350
of habitat type representation here

326
00:14:43,350 --> 00:14:45,183
'cause everything is needed.

327
00:14:48,780 --> 00:14:53,340
So there's the overall progress again.

328
00:14:53,340 --> 00:14:55,710
And I'm really looking forward
to doing more analysis,

329
00:14:55,710 --> 00:14:59,340
digging down into that level
of detail for every region,

330
00:14:59,340 --> 00:15:01,320
and thinking about what that could say

331
00:15:01,320 --> 00:15:03,520
about the conservation
in all those regions.

332
00:15:05,370 --> 00:15:08,640
So just to kind of sum that up
in a couple of key messages,

333
00:15:08,640 --> 00:15:11,220
that old forests are rare.

334
00:15:11,220 --> 00:15:12,180
I think we still have lots

335
00:15:12,180 --> 00:15:14,550
of examples out there awaiting discovery.

336
00:15:14,550 --> 00:15:18,250
But this restoration of
old forests piece is key

337
00:15:19,170 --> 00:15:23,160
and really needs to
focus on these habitat,

338
00:15:23,160 --> 00:15:25,350
ecosystem, natural community types

339
00:15:25,350 --> 00:15:27,870
that are not currently
well represented in lands

340
00:15:27,870 --> 00:15:30,480
that are being managed
to become old forests.

341
00:15:30,480 --> 00:15:33,303
We need to focus on those
and direct effort there.

342
00:15:34,770 --> 00:15:38,670
And I think I'm right on
time to allow for questions.

343
00:15:38,670 --> 00:15:39,783
Thank you.

344
00:15:39,783 --> 00:15:42,783
(audience applauds)

345
00:15:52,710 --> 00:15:53,670
Yeah, so if you didn't hear that,

346
00:15:53,670 --> 00:15:56,010
the question was that wildland

347
00:15:56,010 --> 00:15:58,260
and wilderness can be loaded terms,

348
00:15:58,260 --> 00:16:00,483
and how to work around that.

349
00:16:02,850 --> 00:16:05,340
Don't know if I have a
perfect answer for that.

350
00:16:05,340 --> 00:16:08,310
I think that's the challenges
and the perceptions

351
00:16:08,310 --> 00:16:10,380
that people bring to those conversations.

352
00:16:10,380 --> 00:16:13,890
What I hope in doing work like this

353
00:16:13,890 --> 00:16:17,100
is that by having data

354
00:16:17,100 --> 00:16:19,920
and a scientific reasoning

355
00:16:19,920 --> 00:16:24,920
for why we benefit from having
certain areas as becoming,

356
00:16:25,410 --> 00:16:29,460
whether you call it wildland
or future old forest,

357
00:16:29,460 --> 00:16:31,230
that we can show the reasoning behind it,

358
00:16:31,230 --> 00:16:32,940
and we can show that it is targeted

359
00:16:32,940 --> 00:16:35,130
and specific and intentional.

360
00:16:35,130 --> 00:16:37,440
I think that that can go a long way

361
00:16:37,440 --> 00:16:40,710
towards showing why these are reasonable

362
00:16:40,710 --> 00:16:44,283
and achievable goals, as opposed
to just having a blanket,

363
00:16:45,330 --> 00:16:48,270
almost philosophical position

364
00:16:48,270 --> 00:16:51,780
on why something should be the way it is.

365
00:16:51,780 --> 00:16:53,760
The Vermont Conservation
Design in particular

366
00:16:53,760 --> 00:16:56,700
is a science-driven project
with a very specific goal.

367
00:16:56,700 --> 00:16:58,650
And I think that is very helpful

368
00:16:58,650 --> 00:17:02,340
for articulating why we
should be working on these,

369
00:17:02,340 --> 00:17:04,080
and why they're not exclusive

370
00:17:04,080 --> 00:17:07,020
of all the other benefits,
uses, management strategies,

371
00:17:07,020 --> 00:17:11,400
and approaches we can take
to conservation in forests.

372
00:17:11,400 --> 00:17:14,043
Thanks for that question. Yeah.

373
00:17:17,400 --> 00:17:18,233
Okay.

374
00:17:19,380 --> 00:17:20,970
Not a particular place,

375
00:17:20,970 --> 00:17:23,370
but I haven't looked into this in detail.

376
00:17:23,370 --> 00:17:25,860
But I don't know that we have much,

377
00:17:25,860 --> 00:17:27,870
I mean, we just don't have much sand plain

378
00:17:27,870 --> 00:17:30,330
and clay plain forests, period,

379
00:17:30,330 --> 00:17:32,580
represented in conserved lands.

380
00:17:32,580 --> 00:17:35,013
And I don't know how
much of that is wildland.

381
00:17:35,880 --> 00:17:38,430
I can dig into that. That would
be really cool to look at.

382
00:17:38,430 --> 00:17:42,300
But I think those are just so
rare, so valuable, so cool,

383
00:17:42,300 --> 00:17:43,950
that being able to wave a wand

384
00:17:43,950 --> 00:17:47,130
and protect some of those
might be one of my first steps,

385
00:17:47,130 --> 00:17:48,540
if I had that power.

386
00:17:48,540 --> 00:17:49,461
Do you know how I can do that?

387
00:17:49,461 --> 00:17:51,030
(audience laughs)

388
00:17:51,030 --> 00:17:52,588
Thanks.

389
00:17:52,588 --> 00:17:53,700
[Moderator] One more question.

390
00:17:53,700 --> 00:17:56,100
Okay. Yeah, Matt?

391
00:17:56,100 --> 00:17:57,420
Yeah, thanks.

392
00:17:57,420 --> 00:17:58,830
Just to summarize that real quickly, like,

393
00:17:58,830 --> 00:18:01,320
is there a role for
existing conserved lands

394
00:18:01,320 --> 00:18:03,360
or lands in the Use Value Program?

395
00:18:03,360 --> 00:18:06,960
I mean, it's not just about
finding new lands, I think.

396
00:18:06,960 --> 00:18:08,340
And yeah, I agree with that,

397
00:18:08,340 --> 00:18:11,010
that there are opportunities
in our existing portfolio

398
00:18:11,010 --> 00:18:13,323
of land conservation, both permanent and,

399
00:18:14,310 --> 00:18:16,510
I don't know, not quite
permanent, like UVA,

400
00:18:18,308 --> 00:18:19,560
to get at meeting these targets.

401
00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:21,423
And I think part of this is,

402
00:18:22,410 --> 00:18:24,000
I don't have spatial data yet for this,

403
00:18:24,000 --> 00:18:25,380
but I'm hoping to be able to look at that

404
00:18:25,380 --> 00:18:28,290
and think about forest block, patch size,

405
00:18:28,290 --> 00:18:32,400
specific locations, and to
actually start narrowing in

406
00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:35,040
on not maybe parcel by parcel,

407
00:18:35,040 --> 00:18:37,860
but like, in this forest block
there's this mix of habitats,

408
00:18:37,860 --> 00:18:40,260
and it seems like a reasonable place

409
00:18:40,260 --> 00:18:43,320
to be focusing on expanding conservation,

410
00:18:43,320 --> 00:18:44,700
whether that's new conservation,

411
00:18:44,700 --> 00:18:47,820
or thinking about the lands
that are already there.

412
00:18:47,820 --> 00:18:50,040
But I think that really
has to be very specific

413
00:18:50,040 --> 00:18:51,660
and parcel by parcel,

414
00:18:51,660 --> 00:18:54,510
and then weighed against
all the other values

415
00:18:54,510 --> 00:18:58,263
that are going into, or that
are coming from those lands.

416
00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:01,020
Sorry, I think I was told
that we're out of time

417
00:19:01,020 --> 00:19:02,013
for more questions.

418
00:19:03,541 --> 00:19:06,541
(audience applauds)