By Andrew Nemethy
posted
Jan 31, 2013
Photos by Alex MacLean/VNRC
Jamey Fidel, standing outside the Vermont Natural Resources
Council office in Montpelier, is working to raise awareness of the
threats brought by fragmentation of land ownership.
The Vermont we know started way back in 1749 with New Hampshire
Gov. Benning Wentworth. Call him Vermont's first great subdivider
(and arguably an illegal one.) Today, he would be astounded at how
the 6,158,000 acres (give or take a few) that comprise the Green
Mountain State have ended up: parceled out, split, re-aggregated,
accumulated and divided, splintered and fractioned, slivered and
spaghetti-lotted into an ever-multiplying jigsaw puzzle of
mind-boggling, odd-shaped land parcels.Land ownership today is
almost infinitely removed from the original six-square-mile town
grants west of the Connecticut River that Wentworth gave out back
in the mid-18th century, creating 129 Vermont towns out of whole
cloth during a 14-year period. In the intervening centuries, tens
of thousands of land transfers and divisions have occurred, leading
to a complex land ownership pattern that today impacts - even
threatens - much of what we cherish. The problem is called "land
parcelization" or "forest fragmentation," two verbal mouthfuls that
are not high on most folks mental totem pole. But the endless and
relentless subdivision of parcels across Vermont's landscape is
perhaps the most important topic you've never heard of. "It's
happening somewhat under the radar. We call it silent sprawl. It's
hard to quantify, and its cumulative effect is concerning," says
Jamey Fidel, a University of Vermont and Vermont Law School
graduate. Fidel directs the forest and biodiversity programs at the
Vermont Natural Resources Council in Montpelier. Talk with Fidel
for long and you'll see that the effects of fragmented land
ownership spill over and seep into every prominent nook of Vermont
life: plant and avian habitat and sustainability, forests and the
timber industry, wildlife, recreation and trail use, hunting, water
resources, taxes and town budgets, and the state's economy. Fidel
may know more about the topic than anyone else in the state. Along
with co-authors Deb Brighton of the advocacy nonprofit Vermont
Family Forests and Brian Shupe, who now heads VNRC but formerly
headed Smart Growth Vermont and was a longtime resort area planner,
Fidel put together fragmentation numbers, facts and a litany of
concerning impacts in a 2010 study. The 32-page report - dense,
impressive and filled with charts and graphs - landed with sort of
an underwhelming thud. "It's hard to drum up a lot of media
reporting on it," he admits, noting it's a "wonky" subject. But
Fidel says the report has provided an important baseline. "Part of
what we wanted to do is just really quantify this (fragmentation,)"
he explains. Another goal was to raise awareness among Vermont's
landowners, planners, zoning boards and land use officials that
there's things towns can do to slow the process and subdivide land
in ways that preserve many things Vermonters cherish.Towns, he
explains, "can reshape the way growth occurs," as can Vermont's
private landowners who, he says, are key in smart development that
preserves wise land use. "When people ask me about the two biggest
challenges for fish and wildlife in Vermont, I would tell you that
they are development and climate change," says the head of the
Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, Patrick Berry. "And
parcelization of land is directly linked and will have a big impact
on both development and climate change." The cutting up of
land into ever-smaller pieces creates a sort of natural resources
house of cards - at some point it can all come tumbling down. Break
up a big parcel into small enough pieces, plunk in a few houses
"and it's basically lost as hunting and suitable wildlife habitat,"
says Berry."It may look like a nice bucolic development pattern but
functionally, you've degraded the larger ecological system," he
says.VNRC and its partners are now working to provide updated
fragmentation figures and studying a range of towns to put a local
face on the data and understand how zoning figures in, says
Fidel. A critical line of demarcation for a functional forest
ecosystem, according to Fidel and his co-authors, is 50 acres.
Below that, land is not "economically or ecologically viable."
While 71 percent of Vermont in 2009 was in parcels 50 acres or
larger - some 3.4 million acres - that comforting figure is
balanced by the fact only a quarter was in forestland, and 42
percent of parcels larger than 50 acres had a non-farm dwelling,
which affects how the land is used. Beyond the statistics, a sense
emerges how fragmentation of land subtly, cumulatively, and
surprisingly, changes the Vermont environment. By subdividing a
large parcel and adding driveways, that can open the door to
invasive plants, close a habitat door for thrushes, cooper hawks,
barred owls and porcupines, affect deer habits and hunting, remove
the prospect of ever taking timber and improving the forest stand,
affect trails and wetlands and watershed protection, and alter
local hydrology. Beyond potential lost economic activity, there's
the loss of forest to ameliorate climate change and loss of vital
connectivity that wildlife depend on. Berry says a slice of Vermont
life can be lost as well when land is subdivided. When he speaks to
hunting groups, he often asks how many have experienced going to a
favorite hunting spot to find a new house in the middle or land now
posted. Often half will raise their hand, he says. "There's both an
ecological and cultural impact," he says. It doesn't always have to
be that way: Subdivide a 60 acre parcel by putting 50 acres in
conservation easements and putting five houses on two acre lots and
you have a viable ecological alternative. Fidel says he is
concerned that parcelization may be impacting the long-standing
accepted truth that Vermont is 80-percent forested, compared to
only 20 percent a century ago. That 80-percent figure may no longer
be true, he thinks. In Chittenden County, for example, data
shows a 4.4 percent decline in forestland during the last 15 years.
Looking statewide, 25 years ago, 19,000 individuals owned forest
parcels 1-9 acres in size. By 1993, the figure was 40,900. A lot of
land was cut into smaller parcels, in other words, with dwellings
added. And the amount of woodland in parcels 50 acres or larger
declined by about 4 percent between 2003 and 2009 - roughly 34,000
acres. Fragmentation isn't just something contemplated at the
policy level. At the ground level, it touches many people. Take the
state's snowmobiling community. At the Vermont Association of Snow
Travelers (VAST), the nonprofit organization's 5,000 miles of
winter trails now cross over - count 'em - around 8,000 private and
public landowners' property. That creates a tremendous headache for
VAST's 129 snowmobile clubs, because volunteers must get landowner
trail permissions each year, says Executive Director Alexis Nelson.
"It certainly is one of our challenges," she says. "It's a huge
time commitment and it takes a lot of resources." If a parcel is
subdivided and has five new owners, each of those has to be
approached. If one refuses to let the trail through, then a new
route has to be found, she says. "It can be quite a
challenging venture," she explains.Fidel's team at VNRC and others,
like Berry, know that they can't stop development, but hope they
can raise awareness of how to do it better and smarter by keeping
Vermont's living natural resources in mind. Berry notes his
department has a full-time person working with towns to raise the
issue and help draft town plans. Ultimately, education - smarter
zoning, planning, teaching towns about fragmentation's impacts and
connecting with private landowners - is the key, they say. "I
think there's a common goal of slowing the degree of
fragmentation," says Fidel. Even Benning Wentworth would probably
agree.In This State is a syndicated weekly column about Vermont's
innovators, people, ideas and places. Andrew Nemethy is a veteran
journalist and editor who lives in Calais.
Photos by Alex MacLean/VNRC
This aerial photo of development in Vermont shows forestland
converted to housing and lost to natural resource uses.
