The Lynchburg News-Advance has an article about the “500-Year Forest Foundation.” The Lynchburg-based foundation is raising money to identify three privately owned woodlands in the state, at least 100 acres in expanse, that exhibit the potential to evolve into “old growth” forest.
Only 0.25% to 0.5% of the forest in the Eastern United States is old growth, where the trees are at least 150 years old. The rest has been cut for lumber at some point in the not-too-distant past. Old-growth forests have especially rich habitats, thus are especially important to preserve — and build upon. The Foundation, states the article, wants to “match forests that have the potential for old growth with land already protected under conservation easements.”
As a number of readers have commented in previous posts about Virginia’s land conservation programs, the state needs a system for prioritizing the distribution of land conservation easements. Land containing rare habitat such as old-growth forest should be a much higher priority for benefiting from the tax abatements than farmland or run-of-the-mill woodland.
