Municipal Forests in the Windham Region
A number of the towns throughout the Windham region have what I refer to as Vermont’s "best kept recreational secrets," our Municipal or Town forests. Nineteen of the Region’s 27 towns have some sort of publicly owned forestland. The size of these tracts range from just a few acres to the remote and wild 1,391 acres in the town of Dover.
There is some interesting history in how these lands were acquired. In one case, a town forest came to be from the old days when towns had their own "poor farms" where the indigent were housed and fed in exchange for working on the farm. In a more recent case, the above-mentioned Dover property was purchased by the town for over $400,000 when Dover realized that rampant development could leave a watershed unprotected. Back in 1973, Maynard Miller, a long time dairy farmer and legend in Vernon, convinced the town to spend the then unheard of sum of $175,000 ($389/acre) so that the town could have a recreational use area, watershed protection and a source of firewood for Vernon town residents. This was the year that the nation was facing a particularly severe energy crisis.
These varied properties offer some true multiple uses, such as producing wood products, maintaining and improving wildlife habitat, providing watershed protection, and offering varied recreational opportunities, as well as being used for conservation education. In some cases they support rare plant communities, such as the Miller Forest in Vernon that has an excellent example of black gum "kettle" swamps, that by rights should be many miles south of here.
The Municipal Forests that have high quality timber can provide some substantial income. On the Brattleboro Watershed Forest, over $30,000 was realized on a timber sale that covered less than 30 acres. This showcase forest also has excellent wildlife habitat, a wide range of non-motorized passive recreational opportunities, and provides a clean source of water for nearly 10,000 town residents.
Newfane’s relatively new town forest has been used by several area schools as an outdoor educational laboratory as well as providing a trail network that fills a niche in the middle of the West River Valley.
We are truly blessed that our region has these forests that are unique and diverse, and they are not bound by the often-stringent management requirements of the National or State forestland but usually are overseen by some sort of town committee. The Windham County Forester provides management assistance to several of the town forests and some are managed by private consulting foresters.
Click here (pdf) to see a map of conservation lands in the Windham County region, and see more specifically where these important town forests are.
AND! Check out the Mapserver feature of ACORN to see conserved lands, air photos, and much more!
Bill Guenther, Windham County Forester
