PLANNING >> DEVELOPING A PLAN
Developing a forest management plan involves identifying what you value about your forest, locating and marking your property boundaries, inventorying resources, and writing a detailed but flexible strategy for achieving your objectives. The plan serves as your roadmap for maintaining and improving your forest, ensuring it aligns with your vision and adapts over time. Consulting with experts and regularly updating the plan are key to its success.
IDENTIFYING YOUR FOREST VALUES
The first step in developing a management plan is to identify what you value about your forest. What about your forest is important to you today and in the future? How do you currently use the land and how is that likely to change? What are your concerns about your woodlands? What vision do you have for your woods? The answers to these questions clearly establish how you think about your forest. You are describing what is important. These values build the basis for your forest management plan and direct the management actions that will be utilized to maintain or improve them.
IDENTIFYING AND MAINTAINING YOUR PROPERTY LINES AND CORNERS
Identifying and marking property boundary lines and corners is an important step in preparing to manage a forest.Clearly marked boundaries prevent accidental cutting on a neighbor’s land, which can bring triple damages under Pennsylvania’s timber trespass law (Title 42 § 8311). Use the deed, a survey if one exists, and maps or GIS records to locate the lines. Then mark and maintain them, and talk with neighbors before any harvest near a shared boundary. Note that under Pennsylvania law, only a licensed Professional Land Surveyor can legally establish, locate, and set or replace official monuments for property boundaries.
INVENTORYING RESOURCES ON YOUR PROPERTY
Once ownership objectives have been defined and boundary lines have been identified, resources can be inventoried. A resource inventory describes what the property contains: tree species, sizes and quality, regeneration, soils, water features, wildlife habitat, and special or cultural sites. A forester usually collects this information, which becomes the basis for the management plan.
CREATING A WRITTEN MANAGEMENT PLAN
A forest management plan applies the landowner’s values to their forest and then creates a timetable or schedule for the completion of the recommended activities that work towards maintaining or improving those values. A written plan turns your goals into a set of steps that can be scheduled and tracked. It should be flexible enough to change when markets, forest health or family goals change.
