A ‘major win’ for land conservation

BY EMMA COTTON VTDigger

Gov. Phil Scott has allowed H.126, a land conservation bill that was a top priority for environmentalists during the legislative session, to pass into law without his signature.

The law establishes a goal of permanently conserving 30 percent of Vermont’s total land area by 2030 and conserving 50 percent by 2050. It aligns with national goals articulated by the Biden administration.

In a letter to lawmakers, Scott said he considered vetoing the bill because some of its findings “muddy the purpose,” and it includes definitions that are “broad and vague.”

But he also applauded lawmakers for working with his administration to address the concerns he raised last year, when he vetoed a similar bill. Now, the legislation positions the Agency of Natural Resources to “be the clear lead in the effort to achieve our conservation goals with the understanding future growth is necessary and inevitable in Vermont,” Scott wrote.

In addition to setting goals for land conservation, the bill, introduced by Rep. Amy Sheldon, D-Middlebury, outlines a path forward. It instructs the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board, in consultation with the Agency of Natural Resources, to create an inventory of the land already conserved in Vermont, along with the state’s land conservation policies. It is due to lawmakers by July 1, 2024.

Lawmakers also established categories for different types of conservation that would apply to the state’s land in the future.

Those categories include “ecological reserve areas,” where land would be managed passively to become wild; “biodiversity conservation areas,” where land would be carefully managed in an active manner to improve biodiversity for certain species and habitats; and “natural resources management areas,” where long-term, sustainable logging could take place.

In all of these categories, conversion of large areas — for housing development, for example — would not be allowed.

By Dec. 1, 2025, the Vermont Housing and Conservation Board is required to submit a plan to meet the conservation goals in the bill, and it must include all of the categories.

Of Vermont’s 4.2 million acres of forestland, more than 12,600 acres are converted for other uses each year, according to a

2020 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Also last week, the Vermont Center for Ecostudies released a report that characterized the range of biodiversity in Vermont — and predicted that the state will lose about 6 percent of its species by 2100 due to climate change.

Land fragmentation and climate change pose compounding challenges to species, and land conservation has been identified as a key strategy for mitigating that harm.

While the need for housing in Vermont is dire, Scott, a staunch advocate of creating more housing, said the bill “anticipates the need for housing and for the conservation plan to incorporate smart growth principles to ensure future conservation investment does not impede the buildout of areas the state has designated for growth.”

“Balancing land protection and housing is core to the state’s future and this bill will allow ANR to work closely with VHCB to ensure this critical balance in the planning process,” he wrote.

Sheldon said she and other members of the House Environment and Energy Committee worked to craft a bill that the state’s Agency of Natural Resources, and the Scott administration, could support.

“I’m so excited, because I think that it sets the standard for how we conserve biodiversity in the future in Vermont — but also, because other states are just beginning to have these conversations, we can be a leader, and they can look to see what we’ve done,” she said.

Environmentalists celebrated the bill’s passage into law on Monday. Jon Leibowitz, executive director of the Vermont Wilderness Trust, a land trust that conserves land to be “forever wild,” called the new law a significant “step in the right direction.”

In particular, he lauded the bill’s inclusion of ecological reserve areas, which would be managed passively to become wilderness. Across Vermont, where 74 percent of the state is covered in forest, only around 3.7 percent is managed passively, with no logging or other management allowed, according to a recently released report by Wildlands, Woodlands, Farmlands & Communities.

Zack Porter, executive director of Standing Trees, a group that advocates for increased protection of public lands, called the bill’s passage “monumental.”

Though the bill does not require land conservation — it establishes goals and creates a plan — Porter said he’s optimistic that it will have a significant impact.

“Without setting goals, there isn’t the political incentive to make progress,” he said.

A group of environmental organizations, including Vermont Natural Resources Council, Vermont Conservation

Voters, The Nature Conservancy in Vermont, Audubon Vermont, Vermont Land Trust and the Trust for Public Land issued a statement calling the new law “a major win for the future protection of Vermont’s forests, water, wildlife, and community resilience.”