Governor's Conference on Forestry - Land Use Theme


Dear Governor's Forestry Conference participant:

You have registered to attend a concurrent work session entitled "Managing the Impacts of Changes in Wisconsin's Land Use and Forest Ownership" on Wednesday, November 10th from 8:00 until 12:30. At this session we will be addressing how to prevent and mitigate forest fragmentation and parcelization. The leadership team for this session has established three goals to help us meet the objective of minimizing and preventing forest fragmentation and parcelization.

Our work at the session will focus on choosing priority actions to achieve those goals.

In order to get good participation and feedback from session attendees and to be able to use our time wisely on the 10th we are asking all people currently registered for this session to fill out a web survey on priority actions regarding this topic. The list of potential actions was generated by a diverse land use leadership team that has been organizing this session. Now, we would like you to weigh in on what you think should be the priority actions. We will calculate the results prior to the conference and present priority actions that reflect the opinions of the large range of participants registered for this session.

Please complete and submit the survey by noon on Wednesday, 11/3/04, so that we have time to calculate the results for the conference.

Thank you for registering for our session and for taking the time to fill out the survey.

See you at the conference,

Lisa MacKinnon
Theme Champion--Land Use
Governor's Forestry Conference


Instructions for using Decision Matrix

There are three goals with a total of fifty actions. The decision matrix takes approximately thirty minutes to complete.

1.) Fill in your Name.

2.) Give each action a rating of LOW | MEDIUM | HIGH by selecting one of its corresponding buttons.

Guidelines for ranking a criterion as HIGH.

  • Immediate: If the action isn’t done soon, the opportunity to accomplish it will be lost.
  • Effective/Critical: This action will be a key step in achieving the goal, or without it, the goal is unachievable.
  • Feasible: The action can be accomplished with given or expected resources.
  • Acceptable: There is unlikely to be significant/insurmountable political, public, NGO or government agency controversy. There are groups who will actively advocate for this action.
  • Affordability: The cost to accomplish the action is reasonable (especially in relation to effectiveness) and there are available funding sources, or likely sources to accomplish it, or there are groups willing to work towards finding funds.

3.) If you would like to retain a hard copy of your answers print this page before saving.

4.) Click save to submit your answers.

5.) View results to see how conference attendees as a whole completed the matrix.

If you would like to suggest an additional action that is not listed here, please email or fax your suggested action under the subject heading "additional decision matrix actions" to Lisa MacKinnon at "Lmac@1kfriends.org" or fax # 608/259-1621 by noon on November 3rd. We will have a list of these additional suggestions at the session.
Goal: Maintain and expand viable tracts of forest land for ecological, economic and social values. Don't Know Immediate Effective/
Critical		 Feasible Acceptable Affordability
Skip Action Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High
Policy actions                                
    1. Create a task force to position public and private conservation buyers to be competitive players when important lands are on the market.
    2. Create a governor's task force on industrial forest retention.
    3. Use the mill tax dollars for acquisition of working forest conservation easements or fee simple acquisition of in-holdings.
    4. Create a forest program like the Rivers and Lakes protection grants programs.
    5. Allow counties enrolled in the county forest law program to utilize Stewardship funds for land acquisition.
    6. Enact tax incentives for forested lands (capital gains, property and income taxes).
    7. Consider use value assessment for forest lands.
    8. Assess a statewide impact fee, sharable with local units of government, for parcelization that results in parcels of less than 40 acres of forestland.
    9. Utilize Federal Forest Legacy and Land & Water Conservation programs to fully leverage State Stewardship funds.
...continued
Goal: Maintain and expand viable tracts of forest land for ecological, economic and social values. 		Don't Know Immediate Effective/
Critical		 Feasible Acceptable Affordability
Skip Action Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High
    10. Create a Forest Landowner Incentive fund for covering the transaction costs of conservation easement donations.
Outreach & public opinion research actions                                
    11. Continue to educate policy makers re: public benefits of forests / forestry
    12. Promote the use of the Managed Forest Law.
    13. Encourage sustainable forest management in water recharge areas.
    14. Develop and promote small industries for forest products.
Planning actions                                
    15. Commission and fund a cost of community services study relative to forest land vs. developed land.
    16. Encourage counties to develop stewardship and Purchase of Development Rights (PDR) programs.
    17. Provide recommendations for development in forested areas (e.g.,: Locate roads and other facilities to minimize fragmentation, limit rezoning or spot zoning, maximum lot sizes for residential development,cluster development, forest zoning districts)
    18. Analyze effects of restrictions on local units of government's timber harvesting.
    19. Encourage new county forests.
...continued
Goal: Maintain and expand viable tracts of forest land for ecological, economic and social values. 		Don't Know Immediate Effective/
Critical		 Feasible Acceptable Affordability
Skip Action Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High
Other actions                                
    20. Promote working forest language in conservation easements.
Other actions that need more clarification                                
    21. Obtain adequate network of DNR, County, and industry foresters to meet landowner objectives.
    22. Promote voluntary collaboration among forest landowners to maximize economic, ecological and social values of forest (e.g., coops, tree farm families, collective timber sales).
Sub-Goal: Promote public understanding and appreciation of forests and the need to prevent forest fragmentation and parcelization. Don't Know Immediate Effective/
Critical		 Feasible Acceptable Affordability
Skip Action Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High
Policy actions                                
    1. Provide information at time of sale to new forest landowners about sustainable use
    2. Commission a white paper study on economic impact of parcelization and loss of industrial forest land to be distributed to all stakeholders to share with policy makers.
    3. Support tradable markets for forest services (e.g. carbon).
Outreach & public opinion research actions                                
    4. Educate people about products they use and their connection to forest management.
    5. Promote forest recreation advantages.
    6. Use WI trails, DNR magazine, other media to educate about multiple forest uses and value of forest resources to many constituencies.
    7. Educate the public about wildland/urban interface issues, especially fire hazards.
    8. Continue to support k-12 education programs (LEAF, Trees for Tomorrow, etc.) and include education on forest fragmentation.
    9. Support and promote private organizations' forest education programs (e.g., WWOA's "Walk in the Woods", etc.)
...continued
Sub-Goal: Promote public understanding and appreciation of forests and the need to prevent forest fragmentation and parcelization. 		Don't Know Immediate Effective/
Critical		 Feasible Acceptable Affordability
Skip Action Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High
    10. Promote the Smart Growth Forestry Tool Kit.
    11. Articulate community-shared common goals about forest resources.
    12. Conduct poll of public to determine the messages that resonate well with key constituencies about forest uses…organize our message, make sure we're sending the right ones.
Inventory & analysis actions                                
    13. Employ visually accessible computer modeling to inform decision making re: ecological, economic, social impacts of development & forest cover.
Planning actions                                
    14. Encourage and facilitate cross-boundary cooperation on forestry zoning and other programs.
    15. Include forests in community plans.
Sub-Goal: Identify economically, ecologically & socially important forest lands. Don't Know Immediate Effective/
Critical		 Feasible Acceptable Affordability
Skip Action Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High
Outreach & public opinion research actions                                
    1. Evaluate and consider important forest land in regional context.
    2. Benchmark along desired outcomes-are we actually achieving from these lands what we want to get out of them?
    3. ID what economic or other factors drive landowners to "parcelize" or fragment their land
    4. Education on forest-water connection.
Inventory & analysis actions                                
    5. Develop a statewide GIS layer for land ownership.
    6. Use existing inventories / assessments and integrate into GIS technology to identify key lands on which to focus. These may include:
a. Land Legacy Report
b. TNC’s eco-regional plans
c. K. Ritters forest fragmentation studies of the U.S.
d. USFS special analysis.
    7. Identify corridors using GIS travel path analysis.
Planning actions                                
    8. Identify water recharge areas.
    9. Identify unique lands, where parcelization or fragmentation would mean lost opportunities for land protection.
...continued
Sub-Goal: Identify economically, ecologically & socially important forest lands. 		Don't Know Immediate Effective/
Critical		 Feasible Acceptable Affordability
Skip Action Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High Low Med High
    10.  Pair development and protection zones so that we have an identified land use continuum.
    11. Prioritize the qualities to be protected.
    12. Coordinate MFL with certification systems.
Other actions                                
    13. Define "important" and "truly unique" forest land based on scientific, cultural and other criteria and create a classification system based on these definitions.
If you wish to retain a copy of your completed matrix, print this page before clicking the save button.