Last Updated January 24, 2005
Forest Legacy Program (FLP)
Serving as a partnership between the USDA Forest Service, participating states, and other partners to identify and protect environmentally important forests from conversion to nonforest uses
Congress created the FLP in 1990 to help landowners, state and local governments, and private land trusts identify and protect environmentally important forest lands threatened by present and future conversion to nonforest uses. Conservation easements, or fee simple purchase, are used to protect sensitive and working forest lands. FLP supports states' forest conservation efforts and helps the states develop and carry out their forest conservation plans.
Designed to encourage the protection of privately owned forest-lands, FLP is an entirely voluntary program that operates on a willing buyer/willing seller basis only. To maximize the public benefits it achieves, the program focuses on the acquisition of conservation easements on privately owned forest lands. This allows forest and to remain in private ownership, on the tax roles, but conserved as working forest in perpetuity. Most FLP conservation easements restrict development, require sustainable forestry practices, and protect other values.
Project Examples
- North Carolina's Forest Legacy Program. The most significant threat to sustainability of North Carolina's forests is the conversion of land by development. The sixth fastest growing state in the United States, North Carolina lost an average of 156,000 acres of productive forest-land from 1992 through 1997. Public-private partnerships are key to implementing the state's FLP. Landowners such as International Paper are joining the state's North Carolina Million Acres Initiative to help protect threatened and endangered species like the red-cockaded woodpecker. International Paper voluntarily set aside lands that had unique ecological, biological, or cultural significance.
- Utah's Peaceful Valley Ranch. Peaceful Valley Ranch is a 7,300-acre working ranch located near Salt Lake City. The project is an example of public-private partnership working to protect open space in Utah. The Trust for Public Land provided expertise and advice to help negotiate the complicated transaction. The project included many statewide partners, including the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Utah Open Lands, and several private foundations. This $6.4 million conservation easement included a substantial family donation, and the remaining funds were generated from fundraising and the FLP. The easement allows the landowners to continue grazing cattle and sheep; to lease the property for hunting, fishing, and skiing; and to continue timber harvesting.
- Maine's Leavitt Plantation Forest. When the 8,300-acre Leavitt Plantation Forest was slated to be subdivided and developed, the residents of nearby Parsonsfield, ME, looked to the FLP as an important part of their strategy to protect one of the largest remaining blocks of forest in southern Maine. $600,000 from Forest Legacy combined with funds from the Maine Outdoor Heritage Trust and Land for Maine's Future programs, as well as local and private funding, allowed the state to purchase a conservation easement on this property, protecting this special community forest for future generations.
Application and Financial Information
The Forest Service administers FLP in cooperation
with state foresters and other state agencies. Contact your state forester
office for more
detail and application requirements.
Eligibility, Uses, and Restrictions
Participation in FLP is limited to private forest
landowners. To qualify, landowners are required
to prepare a multiple resource management
plan. The federal government may fund up to 75
percent of project costs, with at least 25 percent
coming from private, state, or local sources. In
addition to gains associated with the sale or
donation of property rights, many landowners
also benefit from reduced taxes associated with
limits placed on land use.
Contact
Contact the state agency that manages forestry
issues in your state. Your State Forester can be
found on the National Association of State
Foresters website: www.stateforesters.org at the Directory of State Foresters.
Rick Cooksey, National Program Manager
USDA Forest Service
Phone: (202) 205-1469
E-mail: rcooksey@fs.fed.us
Internet
www.fs.fed.us/cooperativeforestry/programs/loa/flp.shtml
