RD386 - Annual Report on the Actions, Conclusions and Recommendations for Conserving the Commonwealth’s Forest Supply - 2011 State of the Forest


Executive Summary:
The state budget (and the national economy) continues to present us with many challenges, but it hasn’t stopped us from protecting the public; providing services to landowners, and working with private enterprises to create and maintain jobs while developing new markets for Virginia’s forest products. It’s certainly made it more difficult operationally, but our employees continue to perform at a high level so that no citizen is unprotected or left un-served.

In our public safety role, we protected 4,023 homes and other structures – valued at more than $475 Million – from the ravages of 1,114 wildfires that burned 22,022 acres of land during this fiscal year.

To ensure the quality of Virginia’s waters, we inspected 5,905 timber harvest sites on more than 248,165 acres. Overall best management practices compliance was at 84.5 percent, and 98.7 percent of the sites inspected had no active sedimentation present following close-out of the harvest operation.

We added a new State Forest (Old Flat) and sold more than 25 million tree seedlings. And we ensured the conservation of 4,428 acres of forestland through permanent easement agreements with a number of private landowners.

Other successes included the preparation of forest management plans on more than 110,000 acres and the implementation of more than 3,300 management practices that will help build healthy, valuable and productive forests across Virginia. Our partnerships with private companies, non-governmental organizations and other government agencies continue to grow so that the citizens of the Commonwealth receive top-notch products and services.

The forest health arena is one full of twists and turns. While traditional pests, such as gypsy moth and southern pine beetle, have been on the wane, several new ones – emerald ash borer and thousand cankers disease – are threatening the state’s ash and black walnut trees, respectively. And these new pests have the potential to cost the Commonwealth hundreds of millions of dollars if they decimate those tree species. We will continue to monitor the situation and do all that we can to lessen the impact of these invasive pests.

To learn more about all that’s happening within the more than 15.8 million acres of Virginia’s forestland, I invite you to read on.

Sincerely,

/s/ Carl E. Garrison, III

State Forester