Author: Paul E. Sendak

Publisher:

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 12

ISBN-13:

Under the Vermont Use Value Appraisal (UVA) Forest Land Program, enrolled forest lands are taxed at their forest use value rather than their fair market value. Technical forestry aspects, including approval of a mandatory management plan, are administered by the Vermont Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation. Our objectives were to use data collected by the Department to estimate the annual timber harvest from lands enrolled in the UVA Tax Program and to explore relationships among management variables and harvest information for individual stands. Overall, 31 percent of UVA properties reported a commercial harvest during 1989. In total, the harvest on enrolled lands represented 18 percent and 24 percent, respectively, of the reported total sawlog and pulpwood-fuelwood harvest in Vermont in 1989, while enrolled lands represented about 16 percent of the total timberland in the State. However, there were no significant relationships among stand and harvest variables that would be useful in predicting harvesting activity. The UVA Tax Program gives the State some influence over forestry activity on privately owned timberland that it did not have prior to the Program.