Porter County has just over 50,000 acres of public and private forested land, putting it 39th in the state in percentage of forested land and 32nd in total acreage.

Porter County lost 2.7 percent of its forested lands from 1992 to 2009; only four other counties, including neighboring Lake and LaPorte counties, lost a greater percentage. During that same time period, Porter County gained 1.24 percent of new forests. Statewide, Indiana lost 924,680 acres of forests from 1992 to 2009, but gained 1.27 million acres.

Those statistics are contained in a new forestry report issued by the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, “Indiana Statewide Forest Assessment and Strategy 2010” The DNR said the report is the first since the 1980s of all of Indiana’s private, public and urban forests.

The report, completed by the DNR Division of Forestry, is available for viewing at http://www.in.gov/dnr/forestry/5436.htm.

The report shows that the county that’s the most forested, both in terms of percentage and total acreage, is Brown County, with 86 percent forested and just over 174,000 acres of trees. The least-forested county is Benton, which has only 1 percent of its land forested or 2,149 acres.

The strategy report outlines possible forestry initiatives, such as developing a Forest Mitigation Bank, a hardwood timber check-off program, and best management practices for slowing the spread of forest invasive species.

Thousands of individuals and landowners and more than 300 agricultural, conservation, educational, environmental, government, natural resource and recreation organizations participated in the planning process, according to the DNR.

Posted 7/29/2010