Public
Meetings for
Pennsylvania State Forest Management Plan
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On this page: The current State Forest Resource Plan for the 2.1 million acres of state forest land is in the process of being updated. To ensure that the public's views and interests are addressed in the planning process, the bureau will hold a series of 28 public meetings across Pennsylvania in the summer of 2003. The input from these meetings and written correspondence will be considered during the development of the working draft State Forest Resource Management Plan. We encourage all Sierra Club members to attend the local meetings in their area. Eight will be held in cities throughout the state, followed by 20 at towns near state forests. The State is in the process of finalizing dates and locations, but has identified the 8 meetings to be held in major cities. Click here for talking points for public meetings Don't know which meetings are in your area? Click here for a cross reference of meetings to groups. Format for state forest resource management plan public meetingsThe Bureau of Forestry (BOF) has told us that the format of the meetings will be like that of previous forest plan public meetings. BOF staff will speak about the plan and the conduct of the meeting for the first 30 or so minutes. Then participants will be seated at tables of no more than about 12 people. Each table will have a staff person to record comments. The people at the table will be asked to make, in turn, their first comment on the draft forest plan. These comments will all be recorded as they are made. When this is completed, the process starts again. People are invited to state, in turn, a second comment, if they have one. This "round robin" process continues until people have made all their comments, one at a time, in turn. People at the table can make 1, 2, 3 or as many comments, within reason, that they want. The intention is not for people at the table to address each other or respond to each other's comments but to state comments for the record to the BOF person recording them. The PA Sierra Club encourages participants to provide our talking points as their comments. All of our concerns at this time are included in ten points. People who do not wish to state all of them are encouraged to state at least our priority talking points. Participants can print the following review and talking points and bring them to the public meeting to read. Dates and locationsAll meetings will begin at 7:00 pm and are expected
to last about 2 hours.
Our goal is to have at least ten Sierra Club members at each meeting, and hopefully more. Click here to link to talking points for the public meetings. Link to the Introduction
to State Forest Management Sierra Club® and "Explore,
enjoy and protect the planet."® are registered trademarks
of the Sierra Club. |