Introduction
This manual establishes the Best Management Practices (BMPs) for silviculture operations in Florida. These practices are designed as the minimum standards necessary for protecting and maintaining the State’s water quality as well as certain wildlife habitat values, during forestry activities. As such, they represent a balance between overall natural resource protection and forest resource use.
In addition, these practices were developed specifically for silviculture and are intended to be applied on all such operations. However, they are not intended for use during tree removal or land clearing operations associated with development or other activities that have non-forestry objectives.
Best Management Practices for Silviculture in Florida were first established in the mid 1970’s in response to the Federal Clean Water Act of 1972. Those original BMPs were designed exclusively to protect Florida’s streams and lakes from potential sources of pollution associated with forestry activities.
In 1991, Agriculture Commissioner Bob Crawford established a BMP Technical Advisory Committee which included representatives from state and federal government, university, forest industry and environmental groups. This committee was directed to review the existing BMP Manual and revise the practices where necessary to reflect the scientific, social and economic changes that have taken place since the original BMP development.
With this revision, some of the original practices have been retained as part of the continuing strategy to achieve water quality goals. However, many of these practices have been expanded to address additional water resource features such as sinkholes, smaller lakes, canals and wetlands. In addition, general ecological considerations and wildlife habitat values have been included in specific BMP objectives, resulting in expanded versions of original BMP concepts such as Special Management Zones, as well as new ones such as BMPs for wetlands.
Although many of the relationships between silviculture activities and impacts to natural resources have been well quantified, many others have not. Consequently, as significant new information has become available, it has been incorporated into the practices in this Manual. To that end, the BMP Technical Advisory Committee will continue to meet biennially, in concert with BMP compliance monitoring, to evaluate the status and progress of BMP implementation and effectiveness.
Because of the extensive revisions to this document, some of the technical terms used in the Manual have specific definitions that may differ from conventional or traditional meanings. The reader is strongly advised to review the Glossary of terms prior to reading the Manual or implementing the practices.
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