Forest Management Plan
In the summer of 2003, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources conducted a resource inventory of the entire 58,000 acre forest, collecting information on everything from timber volumes and growth rates to sensitive species information. In addition, the Department took the Sustainable Forest Management Plan that covered the gifted half of the property and has redeveloped this plan to cover the entire forest. The work on the new plan began back in the spring of 2002 with the implementation of a public planning process and was completed in July 2007 with a final review of the draft plan by the Chesapeake Forest citizen advisory committee. During the public planning process an assessment of all the resources on the property was conducted and restoration opportunities were identified. Since the official adoption of the Sustainable Plan in 2007, several revisions have occurred, the most recent in November of 2013. These revisions are mostly based on findings from the Forest Stewardship Council® (FSC® - C016194) and Sustainable Forest Initiative® (SFI® -00050) annual audits and from the addition of new acreage to the Forest. The current version of the Sustainable Forest Management Plan is available for viewing below.
Annual Work Plans
