Representatives of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service spoke with members of the public Thursday about a plan to make the Estate Thomas Experimental Forest into an “outdoor classroom” for the community.
Estate Thomas is an approximately 150-acre parcel of land located just east of Sion Hill. The federal government has owned the land since 1934, and it was declared an experimental forest in 1964.
Since then, the Forest Service has used the land to conduct research on plant growth in dry tropical conditions.
Carlos Rodriguez-Pedraza of the Forest Service explained that previously his organization has done little to get the public involved at Estate Thomas, but they now wished to change that.
In the process of drafting a management plan for the forest, the Forest Service expanded the mission of Estate Thomas to be a place “where students and the public can experience environmental and cultural education opportunities.”
To fulfill this goal, the Forest Service has built an open-air pavilion and composting toilet in Estate Thomas. They are now looking for recommendations from St. Croix residents on how to best use them.
“The people here are the experts on the local community,” said Forest Service representative Sonja Lin. “Their input is extremely valuable. They know what’s really going on and what interests people might have.”
Several suggestions were raised at the meeting, including using the forest as a field trip destination for science classes, creating hiking trails and giving cultural tours.
There was also some talk of building an observation tower on the land, though the Forest Service cautioned that there was no funding in place for such a project.
Ras Lumumba of Ay-Ay Eco Tours and Frandelle Gerard of Crucian Heritage and Nature Tours both expressed interest in the possibility of developing educational tours of the forest.
Lin said that it was important to the Forest Service to maintain Estate Thomas’s role as a research forest and that any public use should be educational.
“We really want to maintain the research focus,” she said. “It’s not just recreation for recreation’s sake.”
As such, the Forest Service ruled out opening the forest to off-road vehicles and they stated their preference to limiting the car traffic through the forest to a minimum.
One lingering question left from the meeting is who will oversee the forest. Estate Thomas is administered by the International Institute of Tropical Forests, an entity of the Forest Service located in Puerto Rico. The Forest Service has no office or employees located on St. Croix.
Lin and Rodriguez-Pedraza told the crowd that they were looking for local partners on St. Croix to be the Forest Service’s eyes and ears in Estate Thomas and to help oversee the day-to-day operations of the facilities.
Anyone interested in forming a group is asked to contact program manager Constance Carpenter at 787-766-5335 or conniecarpenter@fs.fed.us.
