The U.S. Forest Service this month launched a national strategy intended to preserve open space on private lands outside of forest boundaries.
That's because federal officials now consider the proliferation of homes and roads on private lands like those stretching from West Point to Arnold in Calaveras County to be one of the greatest threats to nearby national forests.
Federal officials and scientists say carving up private lands into lots for homes fragments wildlife habitat, introduces weeds closer to the forests and makes it harder to control a variety of threats from wildfires to erosion caused by motor vehicle use. They expect 65 million acres of land within 10 miles of national Forest Service boundaries - private forests and other private lands - to be converted to housing between now and 2030.
A recent federal report offers the Stanislaus National Forest as an example of a forest suffering damage from user-created trails as a result of the growing population within 10 miles of forest boundaries.
The new open space conservation strategy does not come with any new money to buy land for conservation, but it does direct local staff at all 155 of the nation's forests to work with local governments and landowners to preserve open space.
"It recognizes that this is a serious situation in America," said Larry Payne, director for cooperative forestry for the Forest Service in Washington, D.C., and chairman of the committee that produced the conservation strategy.
In Calaveras County, much of the private land close to national forest boundaries is owned by Sierra Pacific Industries, a private logging company. SPI representatives in Calaveras County and at SPI headquarters in Anderson did not respond to messages seeking comment.
But at least one conservation advocate said he'd welcome efforts by SPI and the Stanislaus National Forest to swap pieces of land that would give each entity larger contiguous tracts.
"It makes sense in so many areas out there in the forest where the forest service has blocks of land that are more challenging to manage," said John Buckley, executive director of the Central Sierra Environmental Resource Center.
Right now, there are many small pockets of Stanislaus National Forest land that are surrounded by private SPI land and are impossible to reach, particularly in the West Point area, said Jerry Snyder, a spokesman for the Stanislaus forest.
Calaveras County Supervisor Steve Wilensky, whose district includes public and private forestland near West Point and Rail Road Flat, said he'd welcome federal help in preserving some particular chunks of private land that have old-growth trees and archeological sites, and that are next to national forest.
"This is actually quite a development and very heartening to hear," Wilensky said of the Forest Service strategy to preserve open space near forests.
Unlike most counties in the Sierra Nevada that are largely public land, Calaveras County is mostly privately owned, Wilensky said. "We are the most privatized and Balkanized section of the Sierra."
Payne said the Forest Service open space strategy is entirely voluntary and will only work with willing local governments and private property owners. He said the program will include efforts to develop new incentives to keep ranches and private logging lands in operation so their owners won't be forced to sell them off for housing development.
James Melonas, a cooperative forestry specialist for the Forest Service in Washington, D.C., said another conservation tool will involve developing "ecosystem service markets."
Such a market would allow those receiving an environmental benefit to pay for it. For example, a Bay Area water district that gets drinking water from the Sierra might pay private property owners so that the owners would not create housing projects that would eventually pollute the water with their leaking septic systems, Melonas said. He said a water utility in New York already pays landowners in mountains there to adopt certain practices because it is less expensive than building treatment plants to clean up the water.
Ranchers and loggers here have traditionally been skeptical about efforts to regulate the lands they own, but they also admit that economics is forcing many to abandon their business and sell out for housing.
That means that at least some may be willing to discuss measures intended to preserve ranches and private forestlands.
"We are open to everything to help us with agriculture," said Michael David Fischer, a rancher who is director for the District 12 San Joaquin/Calaveras Farm Bureau. "I can't see where it would be a bad thing, myself," he said of Forest Service help to keep private ranches and forests in operation.Recordnet.com
