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PO Box 602 * Vashon, WA 98070 * (206) 463-9405
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| Stewardship Activities |
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Stewardship of Private Forests
VFS assists forest owners with the active stewardship of their forests. Most often this means thinning trees from overcrowded woods. By opening up the forest and bringing more light in you promote more vigorous growth by the remaining trees. By thinning dominant species you can increase greater biodiversity in your forest, especially if you enhance thinning operations by planting additional varieties of native plants and trees species. This can be a positive means of improving the wildlife habitat of your forest. It is a good time to remove invasive plants, which in the case of some invasives like English Ivy, can degrade or even eliminate habitat for native forest species. In some cases revenue from the sale of trees removed during the thinning operation can help cover the cost of these additional forest stewardship activities.
Please let us know if you are interested in a VFS forester visiting with you to discuss stewardship activities for your forest.
Island Center Forest and Paradise Ridge Park Forestry Projects
VFS oversees large and small forest stewardship activities, working with both "on-island" and off-island" contractors, depending on the scale of the job. In late 2007, VFS oversaw ecological thinning projects in both the Island Center Forest, a 363-acre forest owned by King County, and Paradise Ridge Park, a smaller community park owned by the Vashon Park District. Both projects removed mature alder and thinned overcrowded stands of Douglas-fir. These forestry projects generated revenue which the owners are using for stewardship activities including planting more varieties of native species and improving tails.
Forestry operators with specailized equipment were brought onto the island to help protect the environment and maximize efficiency. More than a dozen private landowers have taken advantage of this opportunity to thin their own forests. These small acreage forest owners normally could not afford to hire these operators because of the cost of mobilizing their specialized equipment onto the island. But working together as a network of forest owners, both public and private, has made it possible to afford good stewardship.
Agren Park Forest Stewardship Project
In 2004 VFS planned and managed the ecological thinning of Agren Park, a 30-acre Vashon public park. This was the first forest management project of its type in a public park in King County. Vashon Forest Stewards wrote a forest stewardship plan and developed a silvicultural prescription with the advise of Dr. Jerry Franklin, Dr. Andrew Carey and Dr. Dean Berg, all renowned in the field. VFS also supervised the daily activities of the logging contractor. Over 50 loads of red alder and Douglas-fir were thinned in a low-impact operation that benefited the wildlife habitat, forest health and the Park's aesthetics. The operation netted the Park District $45,000 - enough to remove invasive weeds from the park, plant thousands of native seedlings, expand the trail system, and still bank more than $15,000, to ensure that monitoring and stewardship activities would continue into the foreseeable future.
Agren Park has become a model forest for visitors from around the Puget Sound Region and across the United States that demonstrates and promotes the type of environmentally sensitive forestry that enhances forests rather than degrading them.
Created on 06/13/2006 01:19 PM by stephen
Updated on 04/02/2008 11:18 PM by David
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Stewardship Activities
Posted on: 2009-06-15 21:54:23
By: ayesha
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The Stewardship Activities to be provided to donors who have given increasing $100k or more to your discipline or unit. Once the activities are determined, the Office of Stewardship will enter the planned activities in the stewardship windows of Advance. Thanks for nice information of Stewardship Activities. 70-400
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No Subject
Posted on: 2009-12-07 19:09:43
By: GerryG
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