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Appendix E - Land Adjustment Strategy
The intent of this section is to prioritize purchase and exchange activities by management areas. All land acquisition is based on availability and a willing seller. Condemnation will not be used on the Hoosier National Forest except in extreme cases to acquire rights-of-way or to clear title after all other efforts have failed. Following is a list of characteristics of land considered high priority for acquisition by either purchase or exchange.
High Priority Acquisitions
Management Area 2.4
Acquire lands along major fishing and canoeing streams or adjacent to lakes to increase water-based recreation opportunities and to protect and develop wetland and bottomland hardwood resources. Lands that provide consolidation or protect closed-canopy forest along streams are a high priority. Acquiring these lands will protect the aquatic environment and provide consolidated ownership along water or riparian corridors.
Management Area 2.8
Acquire lands surrounded by or adjacent to existing NFS lands to consolidate ownership, increase remote recreation opportunities, or reduce resource management costs.
Management Area 3.3
Acquire lands surrounded by or adjacent to existing NFS lands to consolidate ownership, increase habitat management opportunities, add to biodiversity, or reduce resource management costs.
Management Area 5.1
Acquire lands in or adjacent to this management area to protect the wilderness character of the area.
Management Areas 6.2 and 6.4
Acquire lands, especially those surrounded or adjacent to existing NFS lands, to increase remote recreation opportunities in a natural forest environment, to provide extensive closed-canopied forest areas, or to provide travel corridors between areas. Although designed primarily to enhance biological diversity, these travel corridors provide unique opportunities for trails.
Management Area 7.1
Acquire lands identified as key properties in or adjacent to existing or potential recreation developments to improve dispersed and developed recreation opportunities around developed campgrounds.
Management Areas 8.1, 8.2, and 8.3
Acquire lands identified as key properties in or adjacent to Research Natural Area, Special Areas, or Paoli Experimental Forest. Lands that consolidate ownership or reduce resource management costs are also high priority for acquisition.
Management Area 9.2
Acquire lands identified as potential Research Natural Areas or potential Special Areas to protect the unique resources of those identified areas.
Other Areas
Acquire lands to protect or enhance threatened and endangered species habitat (see Appendix C), significant cultural resources, areas of historical interest, and special or unusual habitats or features such as springs, caves, geologic formation, and wetlands, regardless of management area.
Criteria for Land Exchanges
Land exchanges will be analyzed on a case-by-case basis. Some factors to be analyzed include:
- Accomplishes objectives of Federal law or regulation.
- Meets demand for national forest resources, including Special Areas.
- Results in more efficient land ownership patterns.
- Results in lower resource management costs.
- Needs a minimum of investment for management of tract - for example, extensive reclamation is not needed.
- Provides an opportunity to solve a problem, for example trespasses.
- Offers land that is best suited to other than NFS use.
- Improves or does not reduce access to NFS land.
- Results in more efficient property boundary management.
- Little likelihood of acquiring adjacent land.
- Isolated NFS tracts of 160 acres or less will normally be exchanged in their entirety.
- Lands are not needed for economic development