33.3 Scale, Extent, and Resolution of the Assessment
areas, river corridors, recreation opportunities, productive forest land, natural areas, lakeshore, and
large contiguous blocks of forested land.
Land Conservation Tools and Strategies
After intensive review from expert work groups
and the public engaged in the Study process, the
Northern Forest Lands Study staff and Governors'
Task Force on Northern Forest Lands identified a
series of potential strategies that could protect the
resources identified in the previous section. In six
categories, the 28 strategies and tools covered the
full range of those in use in the western world. The
major subjects included the following:
1. Land-use controls and planning for conservation
2. Easements and land purchase for conservation
3. Maintaining large tracts of private forest land
through incentives
4. Combining community improvement with land
conservation
5. Keeping private land open to the public
6. Combining strategies in a coordinated program
33.2.2 Northern Forest Lands Council
Once the Northern Forest Lands Study completed
its work, the companion Governors' Task Force on
Northern Forest Lands recommended the continuation of the process through the four-year Northern Forest Lands Council process. The charge to
the group was essentially the same given to the
Study by Congress and the governors (outlined in
a paragraph in the 1990 Farm Bill), but also to delve
much deeper into the issues than the Study had the
time or opportunity to do.
Second, the Council's charge ultimately was to
result in a set of policy recommendations to Congress and the governors on strategies that should
be employed to address the challenges that the region was facing. This was very different from the
Northern Forest Lands Study process, because the
Study was explicitly prohibited from recommending strategies to Congress and the states; its charge
was to simply list out all possible strategies. The
Council process was designed to determine which
of the strategies were most important to use (and
screen for ones missed in the Study process), based
on the knowledge that a second-level assessment
would bring to the process.
The Northern Forest Lands Council assessment
focused on two levels, regional and state. At the regionallevel, the Council directed its assessment to
seven issue areas: (1) land conversion, (2) biolog491
ical resources, (3) conservation strategies, (4) local
forest-based economy, (5) property taxes, (6) recreation and tourism, and (7) state and federal taxes.
At the state level, efforts were focused on a GIS
data layer building process under a consistent. set
of standards developed jointly by the states with
the assistance of a contracted GIS contractor.
Called the Northern Forest Resource Inventory,
these efforts were funded by Congress directly to
the states, not the regional Council body. The
Council served a coordinating function for the inventory. Data layers built into the state GIS systems through the process included the following:
Land-habitat
cover
Political
subdivisions
Publicly owned
fee or interest
in lands
Transportation
system: roads
Transportation
system: airports
Shoreline
development
Historic sites
Utility corridors
and nodes
Forest products
manufacturing
sites
Energy production
facilities
Large blocks of forest
land
State-regulated
wetlands
Privately owned fee
or interest in lands
by private
conservation
organizations
Transportation
system: railroads
Hydrography
Recreational
opportunities
Population
Elevations
Northern Forest
Resource
Inventory Study
Boundary
33.3 Scale, Extent, and Resolution
of the Assessment
Necessarily, the assessments completed for the
Northern Forest Lands Study and Northern Forest
Lands Council occurred at several scales and resolutions.
33.3.1 Scale
The Northern Forest Lands Study scale was a fourstate 26 million-acre forested area known as the
Northern Forest and more particularly described by
the fact that the area's land ownership patterns were
dominated by large contiguous ownerships of land,
areas, river corridors, recreation opportunities, productive forest land, natural areas, lakeshore, and
large contiguous blocks of forested land.
Land Conservation Tools and Strategies
After intensive review from expert work groups
and the public engaged in the Study process, the
Northern Forest Lands Study staff and Governors'
Task Force on Northern Forest Lands identified a
series of potential strategies that could protect the
resources identified in the previous section. In six
categories, the 28 strategies and tools covered the
full range of those in use in the western world. The
major subjects included the following:
1. Land-use controls and planning for conservation
2. Easements and land purchase for conservation
3. Maintaining large tracts of private forest land
through incentives
4. Combining community improvement with land
conservation
5. Keeping private land open to the public
6. Combining strategies in a coordinated program
33.2.2 Northern Forest Lands Council
Once the Northern Forest Lands Study completed
its work, the companion Governors' Task Force on
Northern Forest Lands recommended the continuation of the process through the four-year Northern Forest Lands Council process. The charge to
the group was essentially the same given to the
Study by Congress and the governors (outlined in
a paragraph in the 1990 Farm Bill), but also to delve
much deeper into the issues than the Study had the
time or opportunity to do.
Second, the Council's charge ultimately was to
result in a set of policy recommendations to Congress and the governors on strategies that should
be employed to address the challenges that the region was facing. This was very different from the
Northern Forest Lands Study process, because the
Study was explicitly prohibited from recommending strategies to Congress and the states; its charge
was to simply list out all possible strategies. The
Council process was designed to determine which
of the strategies were most important to use (and
screen for ones missed in the Study process), based
on the knowledge that a second-level assessment
would bring to the process.
The Northern Forest Lands Council assessment
focused on two levels, regional and state. At the regionallevel, the Council directed its assessment to
seven issue areas: (1) land conversion, (2) biolog491
ical resources, (3) conservation strategies, (4) local
forest-based economy, (5) property taxes, (6) recreation and tourism, and (7) state and federal taxes.
At the state level, efforts were focused on a GIS
data layer building process under a consistent. set
of standards developed jointly by the states with
the assistance of a contracted GIS contractor.
Called the Northern Forest Resource Inventory,
these efforts were funded by Congress directly to
the states, not the regional Council body. The
Council served a coordinating function for the inventory. Data layers built into the state GIS systems through the process included the following:
Land-habitat
cover
Political
subdivisions
Publicly owned
fee or interest
in lands
Transportation
system: roads
Transportation
system: airports
Shoreline
development
Historic sites
Utility corridors
and nodes
Forest products
manufacturing
sites
Energy production
facilities
Large blocks of forest
land
State-regulated
wetlands
Privately owned fee
or interest in lands
by private
conservation
organizations
Transportation
system: railroads
Hydrography
Recreational
opportunities
Population
Elevations
Northern Forest
Resource
Inventory Study
Boundary
33.3 Scale, Extent, and Resolution
of the Assessment
Necessarily, the assessments completed for the
Northern Forest Lands Study and Northern Forest
Lands Council occurred at several scales and resolutions.
33.3.1 Scale
The Northern Forest Lands Study scale was a fourstate 26 million-acre forested area known as the
Northern Forest and more particularly described by
the fact that the area's land ownership patterns were
dominated by large contiguous ownerships of land,