DCR Sets Forums for Park Forest Management
NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — The Department of Conservation and Recreation is sponsoring public forums this Saturday in North Adams and Pittsfield to discuss draft recommendations on the future stewardship and management of forest lands within the state parks system.The session in North Adams will be held from 10 to noon on Saturday, Feb. 6, at the North Adams Public Library; the Pittsfield forum is in the afternoon from 2 to 4 at Berkshire Community College. The snow dates for both is Feb. 13.
The Berkshires sessions are two of five across the state. A third session will be held in Western Mass. on Tuesday, Feb. 9, from 5 to 7 at Amherst Memorial Middle School.
DCR began the "Forest Futures Visioning Process" last spring to determine how best to manage the myriad public benefits and values of forest land within the agency's parks system, including recreation, tourism, aesthetics, renewable forest products, habitat diversity, and landscape ecology, and how to strike the appropriate balance among them.
The process has several components, including the formation of an advisory group of stakeholders and the Technical Steering Committee. The Technical Steering Committee, which includes academics, practitioners, and scientists, is developing the draft
recommendations with input from the public and the stakeholders.
"We are committed to having an open, wide-ranging, public conversation about forests in Massachusetts," said DCR Commissioner Richard K. Sullivan Jr. "We had three public forums and forest tours over the summer, and we look forward to the Technical Steering Committee's recommendations and hearing public comment."
DCR contracted with the state's Office of Dispute Resolution and Public Collaboration at the University of Massachusetts in Boston to develop a design for the public process, act as facilitators throughout its implementation, and ensure that the discussion and processes are unbiased.
The Technical Steering Committee is composed of 11 individuals who have a high level of expertise in the issues, trends and best practices of forest conservation and ecology, landscape ecology, natural resource economics and law, recreation, silviculture, aesthetics, watersheds, and wildlife habitat.
The draft recommendations will be posted soon on the DCR Web site. The public is encouraged to review the recommendations and comment on them to MODRDCRFFVP@umb.edu. The Technical Steering Committee is expected to make its final recommendations to DCR in late winter 2010.
