Leveraging your GIS as a Collaborative Platform

Achieving forest stewardship with tools and information

—Katherine Nelson, Montgomery County Planning Department

Montgomery County Maryland's forest conservation program had accumulated thousands of easements on private property through the development process but has only recently digitized their locations making effective enforcement possible. To promote stewardship among citizens, a user-friendly multimedia Forest Easement Website was developed for property owners with easements. A Flex web map using air photos, property and easement boundaries was developed to find easements and allow location-based reporting of potential forest conservation violations. The tool also provides hyperlinks to each easement's legal documentation. The site is tied in real time to the Department's easement database. Other local and state agencies have incorporated the tool within their own work programs. This project was created "in-house" with no outside consultants. The application has now been duplicated for numerous other work programs throughout the Department. This project will be featured in an upcoming issue of Esri's Government Matters newsletter.