• Increase Agency efforts to involve all Vermonters and guests in understanding, appreciating, and managing Vermont's natural resources. In particular, work with individuals and groups who have a large collective impact. 

• Increase the amount of state and private land managed for sustainability. 

• Develop information needed to understand, protect and enhance ecosystems² within a changing environment. Coordinate multi-disciplinary environmental monitoring and research among federal, state, and private entities. 

• Provide education and assistance to the public, municipalities, and private businesses on additional opportunities for reducing waste at its source, and also for reusing and recycling materials. 

• Every member of the Agency's staff will work to provide leadership, exceptional coordination with partners, and excellent public involvement to accomplish this outcome. 

2 Ecosystem is a complex array of organisms, their natural environment, the interactions between them, the home of all living things, including humans, and the ecological processes that sustain them. Ecosystem management recognizes that all plant and animal species live within a physical setting which sustains them, that they are connected to and dependent on each other and on elements of this setting in complex ways, some of which we do not fully understand.

• Create and implement long-range management plans for Agency lands which are focused on the Agency's goals. 

• Develop a prototype for managing large tracts of land in complex partnerships for ecological sustainability. The former Champion lands in the Northeast Kingdom will be the immediate focus of this effort. 

• Consolidate the administration of all Agency land using a uniform process for planning, management, public involvement, and administration. Coordinate planning efforts with private users and leaseholders. 

• Provide adequate land for biodiversity conservation, outdoor recreation, and other purposes consistent with the Agency's policies and the Lands Conservation Plan: A Land Acquisition Strategy for the Agency of Natural Resources. 

• Provide information and technical assistance to private landowners, consulting foresters, and municipalities to support them in managing their land in keeping with its natural capabilities and limitations and its historic and aesthetic values. 

• Support regional planning commissions, municipalities, and local watershed and conservation organizations in their efforts to establish vegetated stream buffers, erosion controls, water supply protection zones, and other aspects of natural resource management that protect surface and drinking water. 

• Increase enrollment in the forestry portion of the Use Value Appraisal tax program on private land. Additionally, provide public information, approve management plans, and inspect parcels to ensure compliance with standards and the management plan. 

• Promote land stewardship and an understanding of the effects of individual actions by recreation users of Vermont’s waters and trails. 

• Review and modify Agency grant, loan, and investment decisions in relation to their contribution to sprawl; modify decision-making accordingly. 

• In conjunction with other agencies, provide technical assistance, training and grants to Vermont communities in order to promote stewardship in managing urban and rural landscapes. 

• Use the Inter-Agency Development Cabinet to refine state policies on growth and development and to coordinate growth and development policies among various state agencies. 

• Use Act 250 cases as one tool to implement state policies on natural resources, growth, and development. Develop testimony in individual Act 250 cases. 

3 Sprawl is a form of low-density development that uses land in a wasteful manner, saps the vitality of traditional downtowns, encourages the use of automobiles, and occurs along highways and in the rural countryside.

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