(a)The Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation (the Commissioner) shall develop voluntary harvesting guidelines that may be used by private landowners to help ensure long-term forest health and sustainability. The Commissioner may also recommend monitoring regimes as part of these guidelines. In developing these guidelines, the Commissioner shall:
(1)provide widespread public notice of the process to develop the guidelines;
(2)provide opportunities for potentially affected individuals, business organizations, and members of the public to submit recommendations on the specific content of the guidelines prior to their development and to comment on a draft of the guidelines once the draft is developed;
(3)hold one or more public meetings; and
(4)maintain a web page concerning the d
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(a) The Commissioner of Forests, Parks and Recreation (the Commissioner) shall develop voluntary harvesting guidelines that may be used by private landowners to help ensure long-term forest health and sustainability. The Commissioner may also recommend monitoring regimes as part of these guidelines. In developing these guidelines, the Commissioner shall:
(1) provide widespread public notice of the process to develop the guidelines;
(2) provide opportunities for potentially affected individuals, business organizations, and members of the public to submit recommendations on the specific content of the guidelines prior to their development and to comment on a draft of the guidelines once the draft is developed;
(3) hold one or more public meetings; and
(4) maintain a web page concerning the development of these guidelines that provides notice of all opportunities for public comment and all public meetings on the guidelines and posts relevant information and the documents submitted to and created by the Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation as part of the process.
(b) For contracts to harvest wood products on State lands, the Commissioner shall ensure all such harvests are consistent with the purpose of the guidelines developed under subsection (a) of this section, with the objective being long-term forest health and sustainability in addition to other management objectives.
(c) The Commissioner shall develop a procurement standard that shall be used by all State agencies and departments in procuring wood products from whole-tree harvests in Vermont. The procurement standard shall include specifications on the retention of live and dead trees.
(d) The procurement standard developed under this section shall be made available to Vermont educational institutions and other users of wood products for their voluntary use.
(e) Working with regional governmental organizations such as the New England Governors’ Conference, Inc. and the Coalition of Northeastern Governors, the Commissioner shall seek to develop and implement regional voluntary harvesting guidelines and a model procurement standard that can be implemented regionwide, consistent with the application of the guidelines and standards developed under this section. (Added 2011, No. 170 (Adj. Sess.), § 16a, eff. May 18, 2012; amended 2013, No. 24, § 1, eff. May 13, 2013.)