Senate Passes Important Forest, Farm Conservation Measure

On March 27, Vermont senators voted decisively to improve Vermont's Current Use Program. The bill - S.311 - makes targeted improvements to the popular and broadly-supported 30-year-old program, also known as the Use Value Appraisal Program. The conservation and climate change combating benefits of the program have made strengthening it one of VNRC's biggest priorities. Read VNRC's reaction to the Senate's vote on the bill.

Read More

VNRC's Recommendations for Strengthening the Current Use Program in 2008

The current use program is one of Vermont’s most important and successful conservation programs. VNRC has long supported looking at opportunities to strengthen the program to allow more people to utilize it. Find out more about the specific recommendations VNRC would make to improve the program.
Read More

Take Action to Protect Vermont's Farms and Forests!

The House is now considering a bill that will strengthen one of Vermont’s most successful forest and farmland conservation programs - Current Use. It’s crucial that Vermonters who care about keeping farms and forests intact and undeveloped let their House members know you hope they'll support the bill. Find out much more about the issue and what you can do to ensure its success...
Read More

Decision in Halifax Case Important Precedent, Conservation Win

A recent ruling by a state court that two backcountry trails in the Town of Halifax could not be reclassified to public roads will have important implications for the rural southern Vermont community and other towns working to control sprawl. The decision will help make rural lands along trails, which include significant wildlife habitat, working forests and recreational opportunities, less vulnerable to development.
Read More

VNRC Wins Important National Victory for Wildlife, Forests

The nation’s national forest lands and wildlife are safer now, thanks in large part to a lawsuit filed by VNRC and other leading environmental groups. In an exciting victory, a federal court judge on March 30, 2007 put the brakes on the Bush administration’s implementation of its environmentally harmful forest planning regulations.
Read More

Fighting Forest Fragmentation in Halifax

As part of our Forest Conservation Campaign, VNRC is representing six landowners in Halifax, Vermont, who are challenging forestland development in two locations rich in forest and wildlife resources. The effort by the Town of Halifax to reclassify recreational trails to roads could set a dangerous precedent and help facilitate increased development in rural and forested areas. VNRC is working closely with citizens, as part of our technical assistance program, to help them fight potentially inappropriate subdivision development.
Read More

Technical Assistance to Communities

VNRC is working to develop creative new planning and zoning strategies in Vermont to promote forestland conservation and reduce forest fragmentation and parcelization. We are reviewing forestland conservation planning strategies that exist in the state and developing new planning templates for municipalities. VNRC is available to assist communities on this issue in several ways.
Read More

VNRC Convenes Unprecedented Forest Roundtable

VNRC is currently conducting a roundtable discussion with over 60 experts in the state to identify the causes of forest fragmentation and parcelization and create workable solutions for landowners, municipalities, and state government to adequately plan for appropriate forestland conservation.
Read More

Activists, Sportsmen, Others Pull Together for Vermont's Wildlife

The Vermont Wildlife Partnership, a non-traditional coalition of 36 organizations that includes VNRC, The Nature Conservancy and the Vermont Federation of Sportsmen, is urging lawmakers to secure long-term funding for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, which finds itself increasingly stretched financially.

The coalition supports the recommendations made by the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Task Force, a group appointed by the Governor last year to investigate alternatives and make recommendations on sustainable funding sources.
Read More

Wilderness Bill Signed Into Law!

On December 1, President Bush signed into law the New England Wilderness Act of 2006, adding 42,000 acres of permanently protected wild lands to the Green Mountain National Forest. Now off limits to motorized recreation and logging, these wild lands will offer visitors unparalleled remote backcountry opportunities to hike, fish, hunt, and explore.
Read More