Kitsap: A community forest program provides the small and local community value and lots of advantages from the land, access and rights to the valuable forest resources, and involvement in management decisions. These forests can be easily managed for timber production, agroforestry, recreation, and/or watershed protection.
Fact: Community forests are permanently protected and typically owned by the Kitsap County Department of Community development.
Some of the USA’s most valuable and exclusive natural and renewable resources can be found in rural areas where local communities are struggling with hunger, poverty, unemployment, discrimination, food insecurity, and health disparities. Recognizing this, The Kitsap County’s Conservation Fund works with diverse communities to identify and set up community forests as part of a more significant initiative to build the vital relationship between communities and conservation.
These are some essential characteristics of community forests:
Permanent protection of the land;
The community gets enormous value and advantages from the land;
The community has full access and rights to the forest’s valuable resources; and
The community gets too involved in management decisions.
OUR ROLE IN COMMUNITY FORESTS
Instituting community forests provide outstanding opportunities for local collaboration on a large scale it also provides economic gain and environmental protection. Speaking about some of America’s most unjustified communities’ economic and social needs.
KITSAP UPDATE
At present, a new state Community Forest Program is under consideration in the legislature. Great Peninsula Conservancy (GPC), The regional land trust, appealed for a $3 million grant that would conserve, protect a 500-acre piece of forest in north Kitsap County called known as the Divide”. It is stated that this effort could be the last chance to save and conserve the piece of land.
Keeping a healthy and dense forest will help ensure the surrounding watersheds, including Grovers Creek and Gamble Creek, remain protected, cold, clear, and able to sustain fish habitat. It will also protect and conserve terrestrial habitat, which is very important for our local wildlife to cling to life.