DCNR State Forest Resource Management Plan

State Forest Resource Management Plan
Home
Executive Summary
Overview
Communications
Ecological Considerations
Forest Health Components
Geology/Minerals
Soils
Water
Flora
Fauna
Recreation
Silviculture/Timber
Non-timber Forest Products
Infrastructure


Glossary

Comments

Public Meeting Schedule

Forestry Home

 

Get Acrobat Reader

 

 

Dear Pennsylvanians:

With much anticipation and excitement, I am pleased to release for your review and input the revised State Forest Resource Management Plan for Pennsylvania's state forests.

The state forest system was first established in 1898 for the purpose of providing a continuous supply of wood products, protecting watersheds, and providing opportunities for outdoor recreation. Over the last century, these lands, and additional lands that have been acquired, have been carefully managed by the Bureau of Forestry. Today, the state forest comprises over 2.1 million acres and accounts for 12 percent of the forested area in the Commonwealth. Pennsylvania's state forest represents one of the largest expanses of public forest land in the eastern United States, making it a truly priceless public asset.

The state forest provides many benefits to the citizens of Pennsylvania. The harvest of quality hardwood timber helps support the state's $5 billion forest products industry that employs almost 100,000 people. These same forests provide habitat for a wide array of flora and fauna, including many rare, threatened, and endangered species. They also protect watersheds, which provide some of the cleanest water found in the Commonwealth for drinking and recreational opportunities. Our forests provide all this while facing dramatic increases in recreational activities that have become vital to Pennsylvania's tourism industry.

With increasing pressures on the state forest, the Bureau of Forestry initiated a strategic planning effort to address the issue of long-term sustainability. In 1995, this effort resulted in the bureau's strategic plan, "Penn's Woods - Sustaining Our Forests". The foundation of the strategic plan was a commitment to manage the state forest using the principles of ecosystem management. Several years later, the management of the state forest underwent an independent third-party review conducted by Scientific Certification Systems (SCS), based on the forest management principles established by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). In 1998, this review resulted in an extensive report and the "certification" that the state forest was "well managed." At that time, the Pennsylvania State Forest was the largest forest in North America to receive this designation.

This latest edition of the State Forest Resource Management Plan takes the guidance and direction outlined in the strategic plan and the Forest Certification Report and places them into action. Since 1955, state forest management has been guided by written management plans revised at 15-year intervals. This plan, and those that follow, will be revised and updated every five years. Additionally, this revised plan includes a number of other significant changes, some of which include:

  • The commitment to ecosystem management, which is based on ecological units, such as ecoregions, landscapes, and a newly developed plant community classification system.
  • The forest inventory for the state forest was revised and expanded to include additional ecological parameters, an annualized five-year inventory cycle, and permanent crews to conduct the inventory.
  • New technologies, such as Global Positioning Systems (GPS), Geographic Information Systems (GIS), Web-based management and reporting systems, and computer-based modeling have been employed to aid in data and information management, resource planning, and management decisions.
  • Through a partnership with Penn State University, a new timber harvest planning system was developed, which uses a sophisticated linear programming computer model to allow for an improved and more accurate allocation of resources than previous plans.
  • The establishment of the regeneration fund, which designates a portion of the receipts from state timber sales to be used to implement management practices to address the over-browsing by deer in order to obtain successful forest regeneration.
  • Bio-reserve and Old Growth management systems have been established and mapped.
  • Several new sections have been added to the plan, including Communications, Ecological Considerations, Soil Resources, Non-timber Forest Products, and Infrastructure.

This plan did not occur without your help. To gather, understand, and consider your needs and desires, the Bureau of Forestry conducted 42 public meetings throughout the state over the last several years. An additional 28 public meetings are planned for this summer (please refer to the website for meeting times and locations). Furthermore, there were scores of meetings with various advisory committees and numerous other stakeholder groups. Most notable was the Ecosystem Management Advisory Committee (EMAC), whose members generously gave their time and expertise to help us make this a better plan.

Finally, it should be noted that this plan is a work in progress. The Bureau of Forestry is committed to the principles of adaptive management, which requires continuous change and improvement as we obtain new information and knowledge. We will continue to work with you to ensure that our state forests provide the resources, uses, and values that we have come to expect and need, and in a manner that ensures our children will have the same opportunities.

Sincerely,

James R. Grace
State Forester