Green Infrastructure and Strategic Forests

The Green Infrastructure land network is a proposed concept to protect and link Maryland’s remaining ecologically valuable lands.  These lands would include, for example, large contiguous tracts of forest lands, important wildlife habitats, wetlands, riparian corridors and areas that reflect key elements of Maryland’s biological diversity.  The proposed network would be linked by a system that connects large contiguous blocks of natural resource lands (hubs) through corridors that encompass the most ecologically valuable areas between these hubs (e.g. areas of high aquatic integrity, wetlands, wildlife migration routes and important forest lands).   This concept is not a plan or a mandate to protect these valuable lands but rather it envisions the cooperative efforts of many people and organizations including government agencies, land trusts and interested private landowners. 

The purpose of the Green Infrastructure land network is to create a coordinated statewide approach to land conservation and restoration that will: 1) systematically identify and protect lands with important ecological and biodiversity related characteristics; 2) address problems of forest fragmentation, habitat degradation and water quality; 3) maximize the influence and effectiveness of public and private land conservation investment; 4) promote shared responsibility for land conservation between public and private sectors; and 5) guide and encourage compatible uses and land management practices.

Although the Green Infrastructure Assessment (GIA) project shares several common themes with the Strategic Forest Lands Assessment, SFLA expands upon the GIS framework in an effort to recognize other important attributes of Maryland’s forests.  The emphasis of the GIA is on regionally important hubs and corridors that include, but are not limited to, key forested lands.  In addition to large forest blocks and forested corridors and linkages, SFLA considers other ecologically important forest resources; including riparian corridors, flood plain forests, forested wetlands, etc. Finally, SFLA also adds a socioeconomic context for green infrastructure conservation.  As the GIA and SFLA projects continue to evolve, other opportunities for integrating the two will undoubtedly emerge.