SmartTranscript of House Environment Energy - 2024-07-15 - 11:10AM

[Speaker 0 ]: There's Hey, Great. [Chair ]: We're reconvening our hearing and welcoming Jamie Fiedel via Zoom. [Jamie Fiedel ]: Alright. Good morning. Morning. Is this working for you? It is. Great. Thanks. Sorry. I can't be there in person today, but appreciate the opportunity to to talk with you all. Good to see everybody in the room. I'm Jamie Fidal. I'm general counsel and forest and wildlife program director at Vermont Natural Resources Council, and, coordinated some of, my comments with other staff at at BNRC. And we're still working through a lot of the documents, that are available. But first, I wanna start by, you know, thanking the legislature to have the wisdom to pass act fifty nine. We'd like to thank VHCB and A and R for their hard work to sponsor the implementation, the inventory work so far, with with many partners and, with a lot of public input. And on that note, do you wanna recognize that there has been an extensive public outreach effort. We participated not as as a member of, sort of the high level implementation groups that have been meeting, but as a interested stakeholder through the process and, talk about a little bit of of some of the contributions, that we've made in that regard through the forest roundtable that we we host. But do just, again, wanna recognize that there's been a very large effort, what I feel is a very inclusive effort, to capture public input to this point. So wanna recognize that the role that Nature for Justice and and BHCB has played in and trying to hear from a lot of people that are very interested and invested in, the future of our state, having a resilient landscape, meeting the biodiversity goals, and and the vision of the bill. You know, answering all the inventory questions at this phase is not easy, especially when there's a conservation plan that's meant to address and tie together all the elements that are considered in the act. And so I just wanna recognize that I think this is going to be I assume this will be continue to be a a a fluid process where there can be refinement. As Trey said, there's going to be, you know, every two years updating this. So I think we've we've started something that's really important, and it's going to take time to really dial it in. And so at this point, there are important questions that are are being asked in the inventory phase, and then there's really this, you know, massively important opportunity through the conservation plan where I do hope that everything can come together. And at that point, there will be a really important focus on the policies and the funding and financing mechanisms that are that are going to be needed. And I think the greatest ultimately, the greatest success will come from building a big tent for conservation momentum by focusing on the policies that are needed, that are needed to meet the conservation goals in the bill. And then the larger vision of the bill, which I feel like through the inventory phase, because it was so much focused on questions that related to the conservation goals, that at times we were losing sight of the fact that there is a vision in the bill and a broader mandate, to both have a conservation plan that implements the conservation goals and the overall vision of the act. And, and I don't think this effort will succeed if we're creating early on divisions that that fracture, the land conservation community and the public who's interested and invested in maintaining our resilient landscape versus building up equal opportunities to conserve and manage lands for biodiversity values, and then the myriad public values that are consistent with the vision of the bill. And so, for those of you, many of you, I'm sure, remember that, you know, have have the conservation goals clearly in in in your sites, but the vision itself, I just, you know, I do think it's it's worth just quickly reading it because to me, this is where there is a broad opportunity. So we don't lose sight of of everything that this conservation plan can be. So we're meeting we're meeting the thirty by thirty or fifty by fifty goals for biodiversity, and then the vision is for the state of Vermont to maintain an ecologically functional landscape that sustains biodiversity, maintains landscape connectivity, supports watershed health, promotes climate resilience, supports working farms and forests, provides opportunities for recreation, appreciation of the natural world, and supports the historic settlement pattern of compact villages surrounded by rural lands and natural areas. So there's a lot there. But I think that there's a lot of opportunity for the plan to have policies to meet both the biodiversity attention that's so important in the bill, and it and it's deserved. And it it is really important for us to get a grasp of the the policies and programs that we need to make sure that we're maintaining biodiversity over time while not losing sight that we have a lot of continuing opportunities to continue to invest in in conserved lands that meet a whole host of other public values. So as I said before, sort of the role that I've been playing has been more to sponsor. We we host a forest roundtable on a quarterly basis, and we've been meeting as a group. The forest roundtable has many diverse participants in it. Too many to name at this point, but the the goal has been to have an incubate incubation of ideas, both the policies that currently exist now and potential future policies that should be examined in the phase two process and to help the inventory question on, you know, what exists now, what are policies that that exist, and and what may be looked at just from an inventory perspective. And so, again, while we felt it was so important that that we not lose sight of the important policy work that's gonna be needed here, we've we've kinda gotten a jump start on that as a group, and you can find the body of member ideas in the in the annex section. And so that's kind of what I have in mind as far as, like, what I'm closest to as far as the process so far has been to, just, you know, really look hard at the the policy side of things. Having reviewed, you know, the recommendations in the report so far, I'll just touch on some of them very briefly and and then wrap up. So, overall, we support many of the recommendations in in the draft report. I think there's a good body of work there to move us move us forward, recognizing that there are a couple of issues that have have caused some some controversy, or that need some some some work at this point or maybe some decision points. But we do agree with the recommendation to keep the three conservation categories as proposed, and we do support the inclusion of one or more additional categories to treat track the full suite of conserved land for public values. Again, to recognize that at the end of the day, we need a plan and a tracking mechanism to keep track of both the biodiversity goals and how to implement the overall, vision of the act. And and even beyond the the vision of the act, just wanna remind folks that in the charge of the conservation plan, was to also, develop comprehensive strategies for also enhancing current investments in sort of agricultural land and working forest and historic properties and recreational lands and surface waters. So there's there's so many opportunities there, for the the categories that are developed, both the three that were in the act and any additional ones play an important role in understanding how we're doing for the biodiversity goals, how are we doing for the vision, how are we doing for trying to support our current investments and having a functional and resilient landscape that's contributing to food food security, for example, or open space for public values. So in regards to the you know, what we did notice is there seemed to be a difference between what the conservation categories working group suggested as far as having a fourth category for the ag lands that support biodiversity, and then a fifth category that would be a catchall for other ag lands and other other open space lands that that should be tracked overall. The agricultural working group suggested moving all of the ag lands into the natural resource management category. I guess as we are discussing this internally as a staff, you know, we are wondering, could there be sort of a hybrid approach here? So I recognize and do not take issue at all with Trey and Gus's their sort of approach that farmland parcels do play an important role in maintaining biodiversity. There there are definitely features on farmland parcels that are playing an important role, should be recognized, and and in our minds included in the natural resource management category. You know, we were pouring through the annex and saw public comments and people suggesting even certain features that could be included. And I won't go through all of them, but it goes from wetland maintenance, the the the forest land that's represented, to riparian buffers that maybe represented grasslands, habitat connectivity features, and and the list goes on on. And so recognizing those is important. And as I recall, there was there was there was conversation about this, about how to address this in the act. And there was there was sort of an approach to say, let's develop criteria and understand what would be included. And then my impression was there was an intent that it was not necessarily meant to automatically include all agricultural lands. So if there is the ability to understand what is the process, is the is the data of a resolution, that would support us teasing out these features, my my guess is a majority of farmland parcels may actually potentially be included in that a natural resource management category, but then some of the lands, whether they're intensively managed for, let's say, crop land, food food security purposes, but they're not necessarily what you consider to be for meeting biodiversity goals, other values, then they could go into a different category and should be tracked and valued. So I guess the question would be, could that happen as a next step? What would be the funding that would be needed? What would be the process, the data that would be needed, and how could that be being changed over time? [Chair ]: Jamie, I'm sorry I didn't mention this at the beginning and every all the other witnesses in the room. We only have about ten minutes for [Speaker 0 ]: each of [Chair ]: you, and you're kind of you're moving up against that. [Jamie Fiedel ]: Yeah. So And then I just have one other bullet here, and I'm I'm done. Excellent. Okay. So I'll just say that we support the recommendations related to state lands and aquatic systems in in the report. The other body of inventory work related to addressing equity considerations as we move forward. And and some of the other issues that I don't think hasn't hasn't gotten a lot of attention, but that are really important, like the aging demographic of our forest landowners in particular and how we're going to look for opportunities to promote the future stewardship of these lands, across, you know, multiple generational ownership. And so there's a lot that was tackled in in the report. There's a lot we're excited to to work on and contribute towards, and and I will wrap up there and appreciate the opportunity to offer you. Thanks. [Chair ]: Hey. Thank you for joining us. You mentioned that you, the roundtable, Did you you provide comments, or where would we find the information that you mentioned? [Jamie Fiedel ]: In the annex, there's a document that organized member input into different categories of policies that contribute now or could into the future, for land conservation opportunities. And so, again, it's not like a formal forest roundtable position. It's just capturing the member input and list of ideas. And I I'll if you can't find it, I will I will find it myself and follow-up in an email with [Chair ]: that. Okay. Great. Thank you. Do other committee members have questions? Not seeing any. Thanks again. [Jamie Fiedel ]: Okay. Thank you. [Chair ]: Alright. Next, we have Eric Sorensen. [Eric Sorensen ]: Good morning. I'm Eric Sorensen, an ecologist from East Dallas. Before retiring in twenty twenty one, I was an ecologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department and the Agency of Natural Resources for about twenty five years. I'm one of the co authors of Vermont Conservation Design, and I've followed as a citizen participant in the Act fifty nine process, including, work with, Jamie's, Forest Roundtable. I'm really happy to be back here before the committee, and I congratulate you again on this sort of momentous accomplishment. I think that the issue is going to move us forward tremendously and I think it's really important and I hope we can all celebrate the conservation opportunity that Act fifty nine, presents. And my sense is that that's that is a unifying feature of this among all of us. My intent is to provide comments on the inventory report provided by, Vermont Housing and Conservation Board and Nature for Justice, and primarily on the decision to include all conserved agricultural lands under the natural resources management category. I'll also provide some general comments and some suggestions on the next phases of Act fifty nine implementation. I'm sorry, I don't have any photos or any maps like I normally do, and I'm just going to kind of read my testimony. So, although I have some serious, concerns about the conclusions reached by by the HCB, Ground Housing Conservation Board, and Nature for Justice inventory report, I also wanna recognize the huge amount of work that has been accomplished in a few months. The reports that were prepared by the four working groups are excellent and represent many hours of carefully considered issues by groups of highly dedicated professionals. I think it's amazing that that's been done so quickly. So comments about agriculture and biological diversity. First, like others have said, I think we probably all feel this way, I love Vermont agriculture for the local produce, for milk, for cheese, for hay, for local meat, and the beauty and sense of place that Vermont farms contribute to our rural landscape. I select agricultural products for purchase whenever I have a choice, even though they're almost always more expensive. We need a plan for conserve for the conservation of Vermont's agricultural lands, a plan that identifies how much agricultural lands should be conserved, where they should be conserved based on soils and other features, and the long term goals that are most important for Vermonters, possibly including food security and economics, social benefits, scenic values, and to some extent biodiversity. But Act fifty nine is not the appropriate mechanism for a comprehensive agricultural conservation plan. Act fifty nine is designed to focus on biological diversity, the forced inclusion of all conserved agricultural lands into the natural resource management area category is misplaced in my opinion and has created unnecessary tension between two types of conservation needed in Vermont. Both of them are very important. The inventory report is just the first reporting step in the active design process, but extends the stage for how the conservation plan will be will be developed and how the three categories of conservation ecological reserve areas, biodiversity conservation areas, and natural resource management areas will be used in reaching goals set in the Act and more clearly defined in Vermont conservation design. So, it's my opinion that all conserved agricultural lands should not be included in the natural resource management area category and that doing so compromises the biodiversity intent and specific language Act fifty nine. First, a Natural Resource Management Area is defined as an area having permanent protection from conversion for the majority of the area. By any definition applied in conservation biology that I know and how I would interpret the definition Act fifty nine, agricultural lands had been converted from their former state as natural ecosystems. This was also the conclusion of the conservation categories working group. Second, sustainable land management is defined to include the types of agricultural lands that support the biodiversity. Vermont conservation design identifies targets for permanently conserved agricultural lands specifically managed for grassland birds and shrub habitats. These habitats are converted from natural ecosystems but provide biodiversity functions for groups of species at risk, especially nesting migratory birds and pollinators. I recommend that a fourth conservation category be established for these conserved converted agricultural lands with specific biodiversity management practices. This was also the recommendation of the conserve of the Conservation Categories Working Group to create, quote, a new category to reflect permanently conserved agricultural lands that directly contribute to biodiversity conservation. I realized as I wrote my testimony that I should have read all these reports first because most of my most of my comments, specifically agreed with that the conserved lands category conserved lands group. In addition, many parcels of conserved agricultural lands include riparian areas, wetlands, and natural communities specifically identified and described in conservation easements and permanently protected from conversion. These areas surely provide biodiversity functions, have not been converted from natural ecosystem conditions, and should be assigned to the appropriate aggregated non conservation category based on allowed and needed management. The conservation category's working group recommended categorization of conserved lands at the scale of management protection instead of the parcel scale. By this approach, portions of agricultural partials that contribute [Speaker 0 ]: to conservation [Eric Sorensen ]: of biological diversity can be appropriately accounted for. And Trey mentioned this, and I think it's a step to come. I think we shouldn't get ahead of what's the game and assign areas as if they are providing biodiversity until we know they are. The inclusion of all conserved out of both the lands and the natural resource management area category is not based on principles of conservation science or goals of non conservation design. Corn fields, regularly equipped crop hay fields, and pastures may be beautiful and productive, but they do not provide significant biodiversity functions. Act fifty nine states that the conserved lands inventory shall provide a review of the three conservation categories as well as criteria shall be developed to determine the types of agricultural lands that will qualify as supporting and restoring biodiversity and therefore count towards the natural resource management areas category. No such criteria are presented in the inventory report and the decision was simply made by VHCP to include all currently conserved agricultural lands in the Natural Resource Management Area category. I believe this is also contrary to the recommendation recommendations or this is contrary to the recommendations of the conservation categories working group. Act fifty nine establishes conservation goals of thirty percent of Montana land area by two thousand and thirty and fifty percent by two thousand and fifty. These numeric land area goals are important milestones, but much more important is that we get the combination of conserved and ecological features right in order to maintain ecologically functional landscapes into the future. Vermont Conservation Design is the vision and guide for this. In the short term, before two thousand and thirty, we should be focusing conservation on those ecological features most at risk of loss or conversion and that provide a high level of support for for an ecologically functional landscape, especially landscape connectivity, including wildlife road crossings, riparian areas, old forests, natural communities, and, physical landscape features, Including all conserved agricultural lands in the natural resources management area category sets the stage for reaching the thirty by thirty numerically by counting existing and conserving more agricultural lands. Really shockingly to me, this is specifically stated as a strategy to meet the numeric ALC inventory report, a strategy that would clearly miss the bio biodiversity intent and focus of Act fifty nine, and it would compromise our diminishing opportunity to conserve the most important ecological features in our landscape. If we are going to be successful in conserving biological diversity, cornfields are not exchangeable for old forests and riparian ants. A few general comments, and suggestions about going forward. The inventory of conserved lands section of the inventory report, just question two, is really excellent. The current distribution of conserved lands, Trey had this slide up and it's, repeated twice in the inventory report, across, the distribution of those conserved lands across the three conservation categories provides a very solid baseline for understanding the conservation action work needed. As an example, with only four percent of Vermont conserved in the ecological reserve area category, we know that there is a lot of work to be done to meet the minimum targets of old forests of nine percent identified in Vermont conservation design. These simple numeric comparisons do not take into account the natural community, sorry, the ecosystem and biophysical representation necessary to meet the Old Forest targets and goes to your point about distributing those targets across the state, not just in the Northeast Kingdom. In addition, natural community and some riparian area targets will also need permanent conservation within the ecological reserve category. I was disappointed that in preparing the annual report, there was not any attempt to categorize the functional elements of the mock conservation design to match the three or four conservation categories, the fourth being an agricultural category. For example, most interior forest functions can be maintained and well conserved as natural resource management efforts. However, old forest and natural community targets require ecological reserves reserve areas to maintain their full set of ecological functions. This analysis can also occur during the conservation plan development, but it will be an important early step to inform what types of land and water features are best conserved within conservation categories. I strongly recommend that the Agency of Natural Resources take the lead in the next phases of Act fifty nine, especially in developing the conservation plan. The Agency of Natural Resources has the appropriate staff, scientific expertise, knowledge, and background to conduct this work. ANR is charged with the oversight and management of Vermont's Natural Resources on behalf of the people of Vermont, a charge completely aligned with the goals of Act fifty nine. BHCB is an amazing organization and a model for the rest of the country, But their broad mission of creating affordable housing and conserving agricultural land, forest land, historic properties, important natural areas, and recreational lands does not match the focused task of conserving biological diversity required by Act fifty nine. I believe that establishing a network of ecological reserves in Vermont will be one of the most important outcomes of Act fifty nine. I want to note that all of those categories are important, and I agree with whoever said that they're not priority folks, but we have there there is some element of risk to losing, abilities to conserve some of these features. We have good guidance on how and where ecological reserves should be established to provide maximum contribution to the ecologically functional landscape in the targeted in the detailed targets for lot conservation design. But there is still a lot of planning work needed and willing landowners in the case of new acquisition to reach targets for old forests, natural communities, and others. This will be exciting, rewarding, and hard work, and will be and will in the end provide more wild places in Vermont for many ecological functions and for Vermont to visit and enjoy. The State Lands Working Group Report provides an excellent summary of the status quo and what needs to be done to formalize ecological reserve designation process on state lands. ANR will clearly need financial and staffing support to carry out new land acquisitions to meet the ecological reserve goals, and I hate that the Legislature can help with those needs. It is also very important that we support conservation organizations that specialize in and are experts in conserving ecological reserves, especially the Nature Conservancy and Northeast Wilderness Trust, but others as well. Vermont should learn from these organizations' conservation successes and be open to and support the conservation approaches they use in establishing ecological reserves. Again, I hope we can celebrate the conservation opportunity that Act fifty nine provides and work towards these goals in a unified way. This really matters for the future of Vermont and as an example well beyond our small states' boundaries. Thank you, and I'll have to go answer any questions if I can. [Chair ]: Thank you for your testimony. The members have questions. [Liz Thompson ]: The members have questions? [Speaker 5 ]: We have them. We have them. Yes. Yeah. [Liz Thompson ]: Thank you again. Bye bye. [Chair ]: Nextiva, Liz Thompson. [Liz Thompson ]: Morning. I'm Liz Thompson. Elizabeth Thompson. I am from Williston. And, madam chair, members of the committee, it's really good to be here today. And all I'm doing here is setting the timing. [Chair ]: Another big mouth. Excuse me. [Liz Thompson ]: And, so so I'm Libby Williston. I'm I'm an ecologist and a conservation biologist working in Vermont since nineteen eighty four in this field. I'm currently affiliated with Wildlands, Woodlands Farmlands, and Communities, and I serve on the board of Northeast Wilderness Trust, though I'm not representing the trust here today. I have a long standing interest in landscape scale conservation planning. I led the Vermont biodiversity project, and authored its two thousand and two report, Vermont's Natural Heritage. I'm coauthor of one of the coauthors of Vermont Conservation Design. I've supported Act fifty nine, and I served on two of the working groups that informed the inventory report that would be or should that's being discussed today, the conservation categories group and the state lands group. So I just will summarize my comments, many of which have already been stated by others. Eric said a lot of the things that I'll I'll repeat in different ways. I was really just thrilled to see the passage of in twenty twenty three of Act fifty nine. It's it's just fabulous. It sets the stage for a proactive plan to conserve the biological diversity of Vermont while also contributing to the resilience of human communities. Act fifteen nine is a fitting tool for implement implementation of the broad vision of thirty by thirty, which is about the conservation of nature, about biodiversity. Using the specific strategies laid out in Vermont conservation design, a vision for an ecologically functional landscape that protects biodiversity in the long term. The implementation as has been the implementation work for act fifty nine is summarized in in the inventory report. There's a lot of detail in the reports of the working groups. So there's a ton of information there that is worth delving into, and and I haven't read every sentence. It's there's a lot. It should be noted that the inventory report, and this has been acknowledged, is not a consensus document. As it states, some of its recommendations do not have the full support of all members of all the working groups, nor of all key stakeholders. I support many, most of the recommendations of the inventory report, but as a conservation scientist, I cannot endorse all of them. And I'll start by saying by talking again about agricultural lands. I do not support the recommendation to include all currently conserved agricultural lands in the natural resources management category. This recommendation, as has been said, is at odds with the description of land in that category as an area having permanent protection from conversion for the majority of the area. The clearing for agriculture is by definition conversion as we interpret it. And the Conservation Categories Working Group discussed this quite a lot. And that was that was our interpretation of what conversion means. So instead, I support the recommendation of the Conservation Categories Working Group to add one or potentially two new categories. So one, I'll call it Category four to include permanently conserved agricultural lands that do contribute to biodiversity, and another, category five, to include permanently conserved lands that provide important social functions but do not contribute to the biodiversity goals of Act fifty nine, nor to the broader thirty by thirty goals, which is which are about nature conservation, biodiversity conservation. So a definition of biodiversity is somewhat helpful here, and I tend attached to my testimony a memo that, three of us had written, but that never really saw the light of day. But it was we were asked to define biodiversity for this purpose. And our definition is, biodiversity is the variety of life in all its forms and all the interactions between living things and their environment. It includes ecosystem diversity, landscape diversity, community diversity, species diversity and genetic diversity. And that's helpful, but doesn't really tell us what to do because different biological diversity is everywhere. Right? Almost everywhere on Earth, there is life. So that's that's not particularly helpful. What would be more helpful is to describe how we want to conserve biological diversity to get us through our goals. So the the memo goes further to say and to quote, from Vermont Conservation Design, the best measure of Vermont's ability to conserve, support, and restore biological diversity is our progress in maintaining and restoring an ecologically functional landscape. Okay. Those three words have been used. The lot ecologically functional landscape. That's what we need. The best measure of particular places' role in supporting and restoring biodiversity is whether it contributes to that, to maintaining the ecologically functional landscape. So the Ag Working Group, report cites the UN definition of biological diversity, which is good and very similar to the definition that I gave you, but it doesn't really help, Because as I said, definition definitions are not enough. It doesn't tell us what we need to do. Soil by they talk a lot about soil biodiversity, which is such an exciting and interesting and fascinating field and soil health, and these are rightly emphasized. And there are features of agricultural lands that absolutely should be supported and protected, and there's a lot of excellent progress being made. In my work with Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands, and Engines and as editor of our journal from the ground up. I'm I'm in the right now, in the process of of preparing a a, an article about this topic, just about this topic. So it's really near and dear to me and very exciting. But, it it it doesn't it it doesn't necessarily it's not necessarily what what we need to, it it's it's important. I'll just leave it at that. So Vermont conservation, Vermont conservation design, does, as Eric said, call out, ag lands that support grassland or shrubland birds. And again, from our memo, an ecologically functional landscape contains all the native species in Vermont. So this is important and the full range of native habitats and natural communities known to occur in the state. It also contributes to regional conservation by maintaining species and habitat conditions that may be in regional decline. So that does include things like cobble leaks and so forth. So, so these these are and and there are other elements like messy edges and hedgerows that support pollinators. These are really, really important and should be counted. But in our proposal, they would belong in category four. Since category three prohibits conversion, these are in in fact con con con con, con and I do support the con conservation of all ag lands for the many benefits they provide. This is consistent with the with the vision that I operate under, that we need wild lands, we need managed forest lands, and we need conserved farmlands. So the next topic is then I don't have that much more, managed forests. It's important to note that most, although most conserved managed forests in Vermont would easily fall into category three, some will not and may fit best in the new category five. So that's an important thing. These should be separated out. Any land in category three, the natural resource management area must be must be subject, as the law states, to long term sustainable management. And we came up with an interpretation of sustainable management. In practical terms, sustainable forest management means working in a manner that supports the natural communities that would be present without active management. So many of the most of the forest net managed forests in Vermont would might meet that definition. Not all of them do. And that's important to note. Finally, the process. The section two eighty two thousand eight hundred and four provides Vermont conservation design as the guiding document to meet the goals of the law. And I would like to suggest as has as Versaab that the Agency of Natural Resources need the process of developing a conservation plan. Vermont Conservation Design was developed within ANR. It's a science based plan. The staff at ANR are uniquely skilled in understanding science behind the plan and in understanding how best to implement it. Act fifty nine is about protecting biological diversity and community resilience, and that is what ANR does best. That is the nine and a half minute version of my comments. Thank you. [Chair ]: Thank you. That was great. Representative Bongards. [Speaker 6 ]: Can you elaborate a little bit? You mentioned that not all active the match force when I do it with qualified gender category three, but played under a different category. Can you elaborate on what that distinction would be? [Liz Thompson ]: Yeah. So so cons conserved forest land as I said, most of the conserved forest land in in Vermont will qualify because the conservation easements require careful and sustainable management. Some of those easements don't adequately do that. And if they allow for very, very large, for example, large clear cuts or real new conversion of the land, then it would be questionable or maintenance of something that's other than a natural condition maintenance of, of a, of a plantation, for example, that really isn't, you know, that is in a sense converted. So this, this goes on in other parts of New England in a much broader state than it does in Vermont. Thank you. [Chair ]: Representative Smith. [Jamie Fiedel ]: Thank you. Thank you. Do do they still limit I think they do, but you probably have better knowledge of this forty acre clear cuts. Or was that the max that they can do without permission? [Chair ]: Without a heavy cut permit. [Speaker 0 ]: Is it forty acres? I believe it's still forty acres. [Jamie Fiedel ]: Yeah. That's right. Thank you. Thanks, Lauren. [Chair ]: Thank you for your testing. Thank you, Reed. Next up, we'll have Abby White. Then actually, I'm gonna end with Jim Gillebel before you. [Abby White ]: Hello. My name is Abby White. I'm vice president for engagement at the Vermont Land Trust. And it's a pleasure to be here and to, to testify alongside, other really important stakeholders who've been part of the process. I also wanna thank you and applaud the work that's been done already with Act fifty nine and setting out this bold and essential vision for conservation in Vermont. So we as Vermont Land Trust have, have been participating in this process really as the practitioner. We are the organization that is out on the ground in communities all throughout the state of Vermont, working with landowners and helping to acquire conservation easements, working very closely with GNCB and moreover working with landowners after, their property has been conserved, in perpetuity. There are two thousand two hundred conservation easements give or take that we steward on an annual basis. And that represents a base of conserved land upon which the state can can target, future investments to, improve biodiversity and community resilience. So so that's essentially, why we're here. The way that we view the bill is biodiversity and community resilience. And so I wanna talk about some components of of the work that we do, that do bold but also focus on on the community resilience aspects of it. So just a bit about Vermont Land Trust, we were founded in nineteen seventy seven. We've conserved over six hundred and thirty thousand acres of Vermont. Roughly twenty five percent of this is covered by agricultural easements and the other seventy five percent of forested or community lands. Also, as I said, we've been an active participant, with staff across our organization participating in the, in the various focus groups. So we do support the comprehensive approach that includes all conserved lambs in the initial inventory, as we've discovered today, or as you've discovered through this testimony, that there's been different perspectives on this question that has been somewhat controversial, but I'll offer our perspective really as a practitioner who sees what's, practical to achieve on the ground. And so just one thing is that we're all, part of a almost forty year legacy of a conservation and vision for conservation in the state whereby the state has, has, invested millions of dollars in conserving land over forty years, working in natural communities. And we see through our stewardship efforts that this land is the tapestry upon which the state can target additional investments to improve biodiversity and community resilience. The conserved lands, by the part they're concerned at the parcel scale. However, within those parcels themselves, there is a rich mix of uses and and features there's forest lands, there's riparian areas, open lands, crop lands, pastures, and more the farmland conservation easements themselves. They they're, they're done at the parcel scale. But when we talk about conserved farmland, there's a lot more that's happening underneath that. There's forest lands that are wrapped up in there. There's riparian areas and wetlands. And the data that we have available today captures some of that, but not all of that. And so I hear today that you're you know, you've been asking for a level of granularity, right, that we but that level of granularity does not exist right now in all cases. And so there are some instances where we're not, where we haven't mapped out all of those resources, particularly that could fall into categories one or two. So I think it's just important to know that additional resources for data collection and analysis are really essential to get into a deeper level of granularity and precision. And it's also important to note that realities on the on the ground are always changing. There's a few, I'll provide an example of the ways in which Vermont Land Trust kind of works with conservative landowners over time. But there's just a point I wanna make that there's there's other benefits of, of, open conserved open lands in terms of preserving connectivity, preventing sprawl and creating opportunities, as I said, for future ecological enhancements. We also know, Gus mentioned this earlier, that we saw in particular the the importance of our agricultural lands and feeding our communities, particularly during COVID. And that's going to become, more and more essential as we as we grapple with the effects of climate change and the cost of transporting our food, from all over the US and all over the globe are impractical from a cost and carbon standpoint. So we see that, these agricultural lands in Vermont are providing an essential community resilience of benefit here. So just as a quick illustration of the ways in which we work with landowners today, there's a farm in, in Cambridge, Valley Dream Farm. Some of you may be familiar with it. This is land that was it's at the base of Mount Mansfield. The Seymour River runs through it. The initial property of around three hundred or so odd acres, that was conserved initially in nineteen ninety two. Fast forward, the Tisberg family operates there. They operate an organic farm, veggie CSA. Fast forward to twenty twenty three, we worked with them using funding from, Department of Environmental Conservation to add additional protections on sixty four acres plus a mile and a half of the Seymour River and remove some, some ag land from production. And so we also worked with the Loyola, the Loyola County Conservation District and planted trees there. So this is just one example of a parcel that's been conserved for a few decades now. And we're able to go back once it's been conserved, once we have, an ongoing relationship with those landowners and make improvements that that directly improve the health of that watershed, and also support the the farm and enablement to continue and to thrive as well. So this is the type of thing that we're doing all across Vermont, and happy to provide more examples and more data on that. But it's one reason that we, supported the inclusion of ag lands in this initial inventory, that we see them as the tapestry upon which we can do more. So understanding them and and counting them and and recognizing the big vision felt important to us. And, that it can also, you know, prompt further discussion about where do we want it? Where does the state want to invest its additional dollars? The last comment that I would like to make, and then I'll open it for questions, is that as a practitioner that's on the ground, the resources needed to achieve this vision of thirty by thirty and fifty by fifty, the resources needed is is is is essential. And two to three times, current state is what Trey cited earlier is about right. That's not just for the acquisition, but it's also for the stewardship. And that's where we're gonna identify additional opportunities for a best time on improving biological health. So with that, I'll wrap and open for questions. [Chair ]: Thank you for your testimony. As I'm sort of trying to understand the tension here around, you know, how we're kind of counting things and, and, you know, we all celebrate our working farms and understand the importance of feeding Vermonters and, and the region and the, and the increasing importance of that moving forward, I think with a changing climate. But also we have in this inventory a pretty specific number of like, well, it's fourteen percent is kind of cultivated crop lands. And then I hear we don't really have the, I think, the word you used, the basically, like, the resolution, we're not we don't have that kind of data, but we're I feel like we're getting somewhere with some pretty specific numbers that reflect fine data. I'm pretty adept with GIS myself, and I've done a fair amount of digitizing the parcel, so I understand it technically. Help me understand. I guess I feel like there's a tension or a fear that, we can't do both and. And I think the purpose of act fifty nine was really focused on biodiversity, not in any way intended to take away from or diminish the very, very important work that your organization has done for decades and many others have around the tapestry and the whole landscape. It was a way of saying, this is great. Some of the numbers that the two previous witnesses brought up, like we have not focused on biodiversity, and now we have an increasing understanding of the importance of biodiversity to human communities, as well as the intrinsic value of other life. So I guess I feel like we in this room have a lot of agreement and I always like, I really want to celebrate that, but I'm having a hard time understanding kind of maybe it's a fear. What is it that's maybe I'm not getting. [Abby White ]: Well, I would agree with you that there actually is a lot of agreement and I very much agree if Vermont land trust agrees that that, four percent for category one, four percent for category two, that's it's it's not enough. Right? That we have to we have to focus additional investment there. I think, what we're saying is that for this initial assessment that, where we recognize some of the limitations of the data, some things that aren't captured in that granularity, as I mentioned, that it's the most straightforward process from our point of view to include it all, to be as inclusive as possible in this stage. Should in the future, the legislature looked and you all look to, delineate more of that or set aside different categories, we think that that could happen through phase two. But we're also looking at the timing of of what needs to happen when, and so capturing it all right now, seems like a very important and solid benchmark. [Chair ]: No other members have questions? Thanks for your testimony. Thank you. Alright. As I mentioned, I think we'll have, Gus Goodwin next. [Speaker 0 ]: Okay. Before I begin, can I get a time check? A re I believe you're supposed to end this. Yeah. [Chair ]: We're gonna go over, and we're still gonna give you the next witness ten minutes each. [Speaker 0 ]: Thank you. Thank you for asking. And I'm ready for the slides whenever. So good afternoon. My name is Gus Goodman. I'm not a conservation planner at The Nature Conservancy in Vermont. And as you remember, I had a chance to speak with you back in early May about the progress of the various work groups I was part of. That was the conservation categories report, the state lands working group, and then I was also on the data team. And, sorry. I'm just having ten minutes, like, mentally compressed and not really excited again. So but today, I'm really grateful to join you and have the chance to present to you as an ecologist, representative of the Nature Conservancy, and a champion of biode biodiversity protection. In May, I opted not to provide much of a means of introduction since my primary role was to serve as a representative of the groups. But since I've had a few minutes still, I will introduce myself formally. So as my title suggests, one of my key duties is conservation planning. Internally, I work with TNC staff, think about landscape scale conservation planning projects that are multidisciplinary and have very, like a whole range of different conservation outcomes. I help with land management and I helped co author the Nature Conservancy's Guide to Managing Lands for Climate Resilience in North America. And externally, I work with partners on various landscape and steel conservation projects that create the very state we live in. And most recently, I've been speaking with CORE team to update Vermont's current conservation design. And beyond that, I managed several restoration projects that try to restore landscape connectivity for wildlife, restore iconic species to their former habitat, and improve the resilience of our natural areas to climate change. And I have two main points that I'd like to impart today. First, I wanna reiterate the Nature Conservancy support for the recommendations provided by the conservation categories, state lands, and water working groups. As a participant in two of those, we can speak to the professionalism, the level of discourse, and I support fully the the outcomes as presented in those work group reports. My colleague who was on the water group shared similar sentiments with me and is encouraged and excited when that work picks up in phase two. Can you say again [Liz Thompson ]: the two groups you are participating? [Speaker 0 ]: I was in the conservation categories for a group and the state lands group. Before moving on to my second point, I just which will be largely related to the conservation categories and the intersection with agriculture. I just wanna underscore the quote me, my enthusiasm for the content of the state lands report. One of my job duties is to review, state land management plans for the Nature Conservancy Postal Legal Interest and provide recommendations and evaluation. And I'm very excited about the, enthusiasm around that topic that is presented in the work group, and many of the recommendations that have been presented are things that would definitely, I think, help agency staff implement that vision and then also give any of us who read and provide comments specific things that can be done as opposed to suggestions that don't fit with the existing tools. So I'm very excited about those contributions. So the second point that I wanted to make, which has been already stated very eloquently by previous presenters Eric and Liz, is the Nature Conservancy does not support the inclusion of all agricultural lands regardless of their intent to manage for biodiversity in the statewide inventory of protected lands that is to contribute to our twenty by thirty or thirty by thirty goal for protection of biodiversity And including them is inconsistent with the recommendations of the conservation categories report. And since the topic, really does focus on agriculture, I wanna start by saying that, agriculture is an essential part of our state because we need to eat, and we need to be able to support our economies with rural industries. And it's an admirable and essential role that we protect as much of the agricultural landscape as possible. I think the Venn diagram of agricultural conservation and biodiversity conservation, we know that that space exists. It's something I've seen in my own work as a vegetation scientist for the Nature Conservancy in California. And we can point to examples in Vermont where that Venn diagram is success successfully managing for biodiversity and handout agricultural production. Do not think that as others have stated, the entirety of all agriculture synonymous with biodiversity protection. I cautioned, BHCb and others who will be implementing this vision to use that as a framework going forward. Okay. I can have my first slide, please. Okay. So much of the my initial remarks have been covered in detail, by other presenters so I'll try to move through them relatively quickly. But I wanted to just return to the definitions, provided by act fifty nine for the natural resource management area and then some of the other kind of national level definitions that are consistent with this. So today, the ecological reserve area and the biodiversity conservation area definitions are are consistent with how, federal and international organizations view conservation, for biodiversity. The decision to include all agriculture in the natural resource management category makes the inventory as presented incompatible with the existing databases and inventories protected land, including, the pad US database, which maintains gap codes that definition is presented there. It's very similar to the definition using act fifty nine and I won't read it again because I imagine this group spent much time with those definitions at the start. Next slide, please. There are a few other definitions, and I wanna highlight these in part just to show that there has there has been long standing conversation about how to best classify agricultural lands in the context of conservation. And so this, according to the PADUS database, the gap status codes, agriculture would be coded in status four, which is essentially an unconserved status. And that is how most partners have reported agriculture into the Vermont Protested Lands database over time. The Nature Conservancy recognizing the incidental and sometimes direct biodiversity benefits of agricultural conservation and that thinking that the conservation as it's practiced in Vermont differs from the national context, let's say, like, Iowa or Kansas, the lands just look differently here, has always maintained agriculture in a separate category, which we call it map three nine. And I raised these points just to help us think about how we can track agricultural land because that has been a thread of cons conversation today. It's like, where do these land you end up? Where do they count? And I wanna be able to provide some of the backdrop, historically, the precedent of how these lands were categorized to help us understand where they could end up in the final inventory. So the Nature Conservancy secured areas database, which was used as the basis for the act fifty nine inventory is main maintains land the same gap one, two, three, which are synonymous with the act fifty nine definitions and then gap three nine, which is as other people have talked about, it's a mixed bag of open farm fields. There's forest, there's wetlands, and there are things like that. So that's those are the starting points for this inventory. Next slide, please. So while every parcel has a unique set of biodiversity attributes for conservation values, One way to look at the overall impact of conservation is through Vermont conservation design, which has been presented to Andrew Bush by those before me. So you will not dive into that. But as as members of this group are probably aware, there are various, landscape scale features of Vermont conservation design, interior forests, geologic diversity, connectivity. And what I would like to just show is, the ecological reserve areas, biodiversity conservation areas, and natural resource management areas are widely consistent with the landscape scale vision outlined by Vermont conservation design. The lands associated with agriculture, this is that mix of forests and fields associated with agriculture protection, do not tend to fall into that landscape scale that it says tidally. It's not to say they don't have like extremely waste based biodiversity benefits, but they they're fundamentally different than our working forest easement when you look at them through the lens of Vermont design. Next slide, please. I think I'm gonna skip this because the font appears to be too small, but it's basically the main thesis is that that same pattern which I outlined from the connectivity blocks translates across the various different attributes of Vermont conservation design with high representation and consistency with those, you know, the the three existing categories, of conservation land and then the mixed use ag land being a little less consistent. So I'll move on now. And I wanna just talk about some of these, like, example parcels because it just there's been a lot of clarity or conversation around what counts and what doesn't. And so this these are all lands that are in that gaps three nine category that's been sometimes it's called agriculture, sometimes it's not. But these are the the parcels that can. And the conservation categories framework, would pull any protected wetlands riparian areas, which basically natural communities that are, you know, contained within the database, very contained within the database, which it tends to be associated with easements. Those get pulled out and assigned to the right category. So what's remaining is uncategorized and, and undefined is that mix of forest land and farm fields. And you can see in that database is a wide range. We have a parcel that is a small amount of ag and a tremendous amount of forest, and we have parcels generally that are almost exclusively agriculture and a very small amount of forest. Next slide, please. And Trey, I believe you asked me, like, what is an average one of these parcels look like? And this is my best attempt to answer. I'd say, standard plot with really funny font. [Speaker 5 ]: Thank you, [Speaker 0 ]: Gus. You're very welcome. So what I did was plot the acres of natural cover within the record against the percentage. So, basically, this is trying to say, like, wherever places like that one example that have twenty acres of agriculture and five hundred acres of forest, and where are the places that have ten acres of forest on a fifty acre farm that are so what you can see is that by and large, there's three thousand dots on this slide. There the bulk of the acreage is really or the bulk the vast majority of farm of lands categorized as three ninety in the Nature Conservancy's database fall in that low percentage or low acreage threshold. So just wanna say that there are these there are these handful of outliers, but it's a relatively small number of things that we could go back and evaluate on a parcel by parcel basis if we wanted to more accurately deal with the the troubles, you know, the the flaws within the gap three ninety category, and deal with them on a place by place basis and, address the those outbuyers. [Chair ]: Just Vermont only or [Speaker 0 ]: is this Yes. Yep. And this is already excludes the, those areas that have been pulled off from the gap one or gap two. Or sorry. E translate it here. Ecological or search areas or biodiversity transmission areas. Next slide, please. And so all of this is to say, we do actually, I feel like have data available, to start to parse out some of those differences. So we can take the ecological reserve area, biodiversity conservation area, and natural resource management areas, which include, you know, working forest, state parks, those or state forests, etcetera. And we can isolate them from the data that's associated with this poorly defined agricultural bucket. We have the amazing coincidence of having a dataset for, you know, in field agricultural production and forest block cover derived from the same source data. So there's really good parity. All that's to say is that we have the tools built cookie cutter out which pieces of this this farmland bucket have agricultural fields on them and which parts of forest. And I think there's a very strong case to have those forests that associated with agricultural easements, which historically have not counted towards our statewide conservation goal, or have not counted in gap one, two, or three, to be included to our statewide conservation goal. And that's the element I've raised in the national four national research management area slide section b. And then the remainder of that gap three nine bucket, is in the conserved for agriculture lane. And consistent with if this if the vision of the conservation categories report was to be implemented, that conserved for agriculture bucket could then be further defined by places where the agricultural practices are intended to promote and maintain biodiversity and where that focus is not. And you you can see my inventory differs from the inventory presented in the BHCB conservation inventories that I have not included the launch unit that's been served for agriculture into the statewide goal. So excluding that, but trying to include as much of the forest associated with the agricultural landscape would put our statewide total at twenty four point three seven percent that is protected and managed for biodiversity, intentionally managed for biodiversity. [Chair ]: We do need to think about time now. [Speaker 0 ]: Yeah. And I will just include, I guess, with, one one last thought then, which is to echo all those who come before me to say that this is a moment of great excitement and enthusiasm. And while if we were to adopt the twenty four percent point three seven percent, that goal seems even further away. I'm extremely confident that this is this group of people at this table, in the audience here, there's a lot we can do to lean into this moment to focus on the real goal, which is protecting and conserving the ecological landscape of it, so it's a wonderful place to live. And that concludes my remarks. Thank you. Thank you. Members have questions or [Chair ]: a good one? [Speaker 6 ]: Do we have those slides? Yes, sir. [Chair ]: Thanks again. Dumont. [Ken Dumont ]: Good afternoon. My name is Ken Dumont. I'm here on behalf of Standing Trees. Look, if you can hear me over the noise of my my stomach growling. Standing Trees, on their behalf, I submitted five pages of paper testimony. Much of what I wrote is uncovered by mister Sorensen and miss Thompson. And is it mister Gibbons? It's okay. And I'm not gonna repeat what they've said. They were far more eloquent than I can be, and they're scientists and I'm not. I am a lawyer and I just wanna point out as I put in a letter that the approach taken by the BHCB in the report is fundamentally fundamentally inconsistent with statute. The statute tasked BHCB with coming up with an inventory of quote conserved land and the definition of conserved land in the statute requires that the land that's conserved be restricted by ownership, by deeded right or deeded obligation. So that in two ways, when it's permanently protected, that's the easy part, say there's a VLT easement, but the hard part is the second criteria, permanently protected and meeting the definition of ecological reserve area, biodiversity conservation area or natural resource management area as defined in this section. And this section says it has to be restricted to agricultural reuse that supports biodiversity, which the other witnesses have talked about how, for example, cornfields don't support biodiversity. So the inventory that this committee has tasked the ACB to come up with, they have not done. The inventory has to be of conserved land and not other lands mixed in. On the question of granularity, I think we now have more granular data. And I also wanna point out that my own career, I've been on the board of one of the preeminent land trusts, and I've litigated conservation easements including in cases decided by the Supreme Court of Vermont. I can tell you that there is extreme granularity that is available. Every one of those deeds, they're like fifteen, twenty pages long and they lay out in detail, in painful detail, what is allowed on each parcel of land. It's all there. You just have to look at it. So again, the point is not what is happening in the land now that's really relevant to your inventory. It's what is allowed to be happening on the land and the deeds lay that out in detail. So the granularity is there if you wanna look at it. Finally, as I listen to everybody who gets money, everybody's done a great job. I've learned a lot. I'm left with what I think is the fundamental problem in the VHCB report. There's phase one and phase two. Phase two is implementation, and that's where using easements comes into play. If we include in phase one, the inventory, land that might in the future be subject to a better easement, Then you're mixing up phase one and phase two. Phase one is the inventory, what is currently under deeded restriction so it has to be land that supports biodiversity. Phase two is how we can use these events in the future such as the retroactive easements that VLT would like to use and VACD mentioned. But that's phase two, not phase one. Phase one is what you already have under restricted easements. That's all I wanted to cover. Thank you. [Speaker 0 ]: Must be very hungry. And if you want to [Ken Dumont ]: look at the legalities, it's in the five base letter. [Chair ]: Thank you for your testimony. Do members have questions? Thanks for joining us. Thanks. [Speaker 6 ]: Alright. [Chair ]: It's my understanding that there's public comments still open until Friday. Is that right? [Speaker 0 ]: To the end of the day Thursday. [Chair ]: Day Thursday. Do members have comments or further questions? I know we're leaning up against one shot. [Speaker 6 ]: I'll say so. I number one, we're all we're on the same team. So it's a little important for us all to keep that in mind every time you hear it. I mean, the people And it should be but I I guess all I wanna say is that I'd prefer that the inventory actually reflect reality, and we maybe have that fifth category that Liz Hanssen talked about that very important Care a lot about it, but it doesn't quite it doesn't quite fit the definition that we're working with there. It's so so to go to the chairs, use of the drum broadband. And I guess that's all I was saying. I said, I I I'd rather have even though it makes the job burp, if we end up at, like, just under twenty five, it's it's been a point seven. And I'm not singling out exactly from. I just rather have the I'd rather have us lean toward what is actually there, and then we have a if it creates a different set of problems, we'll have to deal with that different problems. That's just right. That's just my mind to be. [Chair ]: Happened. Actually, you're supporting biodiversity is what you mean. Yep. Yeah. Let me know today is supporting biodiversity. Yeah. [Speaker 0 ]: And we can add things later. It's harder to take that out. [Speaker 6 ]: So I I I I just have this fear that the the task is enormous. But I have the fear that we're just throwing everything in in order to get us to thirty percent rather than actually looking at carefully enough with what the law actually was trying to accomplish. And so it's not even I'm not criticizing. I'm not doing it. I'm just saying that I'd rather be leaning in that direction than than on on the same interest. But only have it ending because it's conserved because we're worried about getting to that thirty percent goal, and I understand that concern. So I'll just leave it at that. [Liz Thompson ]: Absolutely. And [Speaker 0 ]: I I would just like to, I don't have any any further comments. I think others have already said everything that I would wanna say, but I would just like to, just to echo my my support of the chair, what representative bongards just said what we heard from miss Thompson or sons and some others along those things that I think those comments are really in in the right direction and just what it was saying. [Chair ]: Right. Well, thank you all for coming out on our HDTV. Yeah. [Speaker 0 ]: I'm a One of the hottest days. Happy New Year. Alright. Gotcha. [Speaker 5 ]: Thank you, Monica. Monica, for the markets. Two hours and twenty five minutes of of testimony. I encourage the they need to read the actual group very specific information to answer any of these questions and provide some agricultural perspective, which is not available to this morning and into this afternoon. So we'll be happy to answer questions and provide further testimony at a at a future time, but there's a a lot of data points on the agricultural side that makes it a bit more complicated of a conversation than we just shouldn't include that portfolio and it's a big part of conservation future and what makes it possible. So appreciate the opportunity to share your screen here. Thank you. [Chair ]: Alright. Thanks.

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