Month: October 2008

Below is a log rolling demonstration at our forestry field day.

You can guess the average age of a group if you know their first names.    I looked at the name tags and saw Thelma, two Florences, Roxie, Glenda and Bernice among the first few women that walked past.   Men were named Walt, Arnold, Howard and Lester among a couple Johns and Williams.  How old do you think they were?   At the tender age of 53, I was one of the younger land owners at the tree farmer convention.  It makes sense that most forest owners are old.    You either have to save up money for a while to buy a forest or inherit one.    Tree farmer tend to live healthy lifestyles so they live a long time.   We walked many miles up and down hills on our field day and the old folks kept going the whole time.   One of the speakers mentioned that 25% of all forest owners are more than 75 years old AND this geriatric assemblage owns more than 50% of the total forested land.   I have nothing against that.  I hope to be in that group someday, but it does present some challenges.

Below – they used to cut the big trees with these two-man saws.  It could take days to finish the job.

The most urgent is one I mentioned in other posts.   As the old folks at home take the road to glory, they leave their forest land to their kids who may not appreciate forestry as much.   They may convert their immobile inheritance to flowing cash and this will probably lead to the conversion of forest to other uses.

Some people feel bad when they see a timber harvest, but if the land remains in forestry it will soon be covered again with trees.  It may stay that way for 40-60 years or more and the clearcut will provide a great environment for wildlife until the trees come in.   If it is converted to other uses, however, the forest and rich habitat may be lost for years or forever.    A Wal-Mart parking lot, apartment block or highway may persist for a long time.   It makes sense for people interested in green space to make it worthwhile for landowners to keep their land in forests instead of going the development route.  But development is very seductive. 

Below – they stood on these springboards to make the cut.   Sometimes they had to go up six or eight feet to avoid the thicker part of the logs.  Notice the size of the saw as comparison.

At the convention we were shown figures on the relative value of land kept in forestry versus converted to development.    There is almost no place in the U.S. where the value of forestry consistently exceeds the opportunity cost of development.   In some places, such as the Idaho panhandle near Coeur d’Alene, the opportunity cost for development exceeds the land’s forestry value by a factor of six to one.   Forests and farms provide ecological services that are immensely valuable but usually not valued in money terms.   The stream that crosses my forest land exits cleaner than it was when it entered.  What is the value of this clean water?  Our fields and trees support wildlife, mitigate climate change, and provide beauty for everybody who sees them.    Landowners are paid for the wood, crops, livestock of minerals their lands produce, but the value of the unpaid services may exceed these values.  Of course, development is not as easy as maintaining the forest status quo, but the incentive es clearly go in the wrong direction.

What can be done?   A lot depends on economics.   If profits from wood and pulp are good, there is more incentive to keep the land covered in trees.   Many people who want to maintain green space often inadvertently work against their own goal when they regulate forestry activities into unprofitability.    An easily overlooked aspect of forestry is the price of pulp used in paper and fiberboard.   If prices for pulp are very low forest owners, who might have high net worth but cash flow problems, might not be able or willing to afford to do thinning.  This leads to lower timber prices and creates greater danger of fires and bugs.   

Below is a portable saw mill. 

There is also a kind of a herd effect.   Raw timber is bulky and heavy.  If the timber has to travel too far to get to a saw mill, it becomes cost prohibitive to do forestry.   From the other side, saw mills need a steady supply of timber.   If they cannot secure such a supply, they go bankrupt.   If enough mills go out of business, you reach a tipping point where neither forestry nor saw mills are profitable in a given region.   At that point, landowners look for other options. Goodbye pines and oaks, hello fast foods and parking lots.

Preservation is not really an option for most of our land area and it would not be a preferred option even if it was possible.    Some remarkable things, such as giant redwoods or the Grand Canyon should be preserved.  Conservation & sustainably wise use is a better options for most others.  A working, living landscape is better; a countryside where people live in, understand and appreciate the nature all around them is the way people should live and what we should encourage.

There is an interesting study of green infrastructure at this link.

Below – sprouts on the loblolly pines recently thinned.  Lobolly is one of the few pines that can sprout from a cut stump.

We will get some form of carbon tax and/or carbon trading no matter who becomes president next year.   This prospect makes carbon trading a hot topic among forest owners.  Forests naturally soak up carbon dioxide and well managed forests do a better job than others.

The best and most elegant solution to problem of CO2 emissions is a simple carbon tax.   A carbon tax is the way of minimum government interference in the economy and will provide the maximum benefit because it does not try to pick technologies, techniques, winners or losers.   A carbon tax changes  the energy equation but lets people decide on the various solutions they thing are best.  This is the reason why we won’t get this solution.  Politicians hate these kinds of things.   It solves the problem and takes away an issue from them.  It also is too simple, so they have little or no scope to provide special privileges or breaks to their supporters.   

Remember the ethanol debacle?   It was a great example of how government can make an experiment with a good idea into a monster than raises food prices worldwide, creates environmental stress all the while costing the taxpayers and consumers money.   Expect a lot more of these sorts of things in the next few years.    Sorry for the digression.

Below – thinned loblolly pine five-years old

The next best thing to a simple carbon tax is a cap and trade system that sets the rules and then gets out of the way.   Ideally the government would auction off the carbon rights and let those who wanted to use them figure out the distribution.   Of course nothing is so simple.  You have to define both carbon producers and carbon sinks (takes CO2 out of the air).  This is complicated because the carbon cycle is one of the biggest natural processes on earth.   Billions of tons of carbon are cycled through the atmosphere every day and only a very small percentage is influenced by human activities.  We don’t want to allow people to get benefits or penalties just for being near a particular natural process.  On the other hand, human choices can significantly affect how much carbon natural processes take out or put in.  Nowhere is this truer than in forestry.   

Forest destruction in places like Indonesia and Brazil put more CO2 in the air than all our transportation.  On the other hand, growing forests in North America have pulled that amount out.  This is a big deal, but hard to measure and assessment is complicated even more by the nature of nature.   An old, established forest is near equilibrium, i.e. as much CO2 is put into the air from decay and respiration as is taken out by photosynthesis.   (This is the way it has to be.  The natural carbon account must balance.   W/o CO2 plants cannot grow and life on earth is impossible.  More CO2 makes plants grow better and healthier.  CO2 is not a type of pollution in the sense we usually think of these things.)  Destruction of an established forest puts carbon in the air and the establishment of a new forest takes it out.   We don’t want to encourage people to destroy an established forest in order to establish a new one to get credit for the CO2 it would remove. 

I have to admit that I am not really sure about this whole carbon sink idea.  In the long run forests would be carbon neutral, since carbon absorbed by leaves, needles and wood would be released when those things decomposed.   Growing more trees and bigger trees is good from many angles and it would buy us some time, maybe centuries, in limiting greenhouse gasses, but most of what goes into the forest will come out again.

Of course, maybe all we need is time.  A fix that holds for more than 100 years could be called a long-term solution.  By that time we can hope and expect other technologies to be available. 

Below – a wildlife food plot with thinned pines and mature hardwoods in background

How Carbon Credits Work for Forestry

The market for carbon is one just developing and forestry is even at an earlier stage than some others, since forest sinks were specifically excluded from Kyoto.   This was/is a serious oversight (although it was not really an oversight but rather a political ploy, IMO, aimed at the U.S.) which is being addressed.  This is how it would probably work.  

You have to start with a certified forest, so that you can measure the carbon input and carbon output AND a third party can audit it.   The landowner must provide proof of ownership, including timber rights, location maps, acreage and management plan.   An audit establishes a baseline of all the carbon that is currently stored above ground in stems and branches as well as below ground in roots and soils.  The landowner signs a contract, usually for fifteen years, where he  agrees to abide by practices that will enhance the  forest’s absorption of CO2 so that at the end of the contract there is more carbon stored in the forest at the end of the contract.    He is really selling the difference between the baseline carbon levels and the ending levels. Carbon is sold by the ton. 

These trades take place on the Chicago Carbon Exchange.   Carbon trading is still VOLUNTARY.  Buyers are firms interested in good public relations and individuals, many celebrities, who want to shrink their carbon footprints.  A mandated cap & trade program would enhance this trading and probably raise prices. 

Individual landowners cannot participate in the program, since they would be selling too little carbon to make a profitable sale.  Instead they would have to work through an aggregator, who would collect carbon contracts from many landowners and sell them as a unit.   Of course, at every step of the way various people like aggregators and brokers are taking their slice, so landowners should not look at the carbon price and think they will get anything like the posted amounts.

Each year the landowner would be paid for the estimated carbon sequestration, with 20% withheld as insurance against a catastrophe that might destroy the forest.  The contract would account for planned forestry operations.  For example, it would be discounted for a thinning operation near the end of the contract.    Of course, a well timed thinning INCREASES total carbon sequestration in the medium and long run, so that is also estimated if done earlier in the contract.   At the end of the term there is a reckoning.  A final audit determines how much carbon has been soaked up.   If it is as estimated the landowner gets the 20% that had been withheld.  If there is less than estimated, the landowner doesn’t get the whole amount and if there is more he gets a bonus.

Some landowners see this as free money.  They get paid for what they would have done anyway.  This is not entirely true.  As with any contract, you have to be c careful.   The carbon contract acts as a type of easement.   It complicates your ability to sell the land unencumbered as well as defacto tying up your ability freely to develop the land during the period of the contract.    Still and all, it looks like a good way to pump some money into rural land, compensate landowners for some of those green infrastructure benefits they provide and maybe tip the balance in favor of forestry and against conversion to other uses or development.

I don’t have a contract on my land.  I am waiting until I understand the process better.   There is no rush.  IMO, the price of carbon will go up.  I have mixed feeling about the idea of selling credits.  It seems a lot like selling indulgences in the medieval church.    The carbon credits produced on my land will allow people like Madonna or Al Gore to jet around the world without feeling guilty about the burden they place on the environment.   But they will do that anyway.   Putting money back into the land is a good idea, no matter the source.  

Virginia Tech produced a good background on carbon trading and I have added this one.   

This is my last entry re my tree farm convention.   I know I have put out a lot about that, but there was a lot to say.

Below is a forwarder at work.   It is owner operated, so the guy has to work hard.  That vehicle costs $250,000, but allows one man to do the work of dozens.

On our field day to the Beaver Creek Tree Farm I saw lots of interesting aspects of forestry.   I noticed the differences between forestry in the Northeast and in the South.    The South is ahead of other regions in the practice of silvaculture and marketing total life cycle of wood.  

Below is the owner-operator explaining the economics of his business.  He started working on his own land, but soon found that he could make money working on other people’s land too.  It helped him defray the cost of the equipment.

I think that is because the Northeast was TOO blessed by nature and the Federal government.   Most of the timber harvested in the NW came from Federal lands until the spotted owl controversy.   Logging in the region was much more reminiscent of the traditional logging of the 19^th Century than of the type of tree farming we do now.    In many ways, the old practices were more like hunter gatherers, whereas tree farming of today is more like settled agriculture.

Below the guy up above told us that he has trouble finding people with the skills to run his equipment, but mentioned that kids who play a lot of video games are good candidates.   The skills they learn playing games is transferable to the 3D work in the forests.  This is an actual forestry video game at the Museum of Forestry in Portland.

The South has a good climate and ecological situation for growing trees, especially pine trees,  but it took more work and planning to make the land productive.   Most of the South’s forests are growing on former farm fields where the soil was exhausted by over cropping of cotton or tobacco.   Many were converted to forests around the time of the great depression and we are on our third generation. Our soils do not have the “A” level of top soil in most cases.   We are rebuilding our soils, but it will take another generation or more to restore something like there was before the abuse.   On the plus side, most of the Southern forests are on rolling hills or flat areas.  It is very easy to run mechanized forestry operations in the South and many of the techniques and machines themselves were developed for Southern forests or with Southern forests in mind.  The South also has lots of saw mills to process the wood.   The South is truly America’s wood basket, supplying around 58% of the total wood used in the U.S.

Below – mechanized forestry can be done in the NW too.

Logging in the Northwest is sometimes more heroic because they have to work in difficult mountain conditions.   For example, they often have to use cables to pull logs up hills for loading.   On Southern tree farms it is often possible for the wood to be loaded directly onto trucks.   Most Southern tree farms are also closer to paved roads. 

Below is the Willamette (pronounced wɨˈlæmɨt) River in Portland.  Mt Hood is in the background but hard to see.

The economy of forest production is better in the South than the Northwest as that region’s earlier advantage in access to standing Federal-owned timber has disappeared.   Trees grow fast in both regions.   My guess is that a natural forest would grow faster in the NW, but tree farms are more productive in the South because of better developed silvaculture techniques and topography that is easier to work with.   I don’t know for sure, but it also seemed to me that Oregon had more onerous regulations than Virginia.   But all that aside, forestry is more similar in the regions than different and as forestry in the Northwest shifts from publicly owned forests to private tree farms, the similarities will grow.   Forests in the Northwest are beautiful and the Douglas fir & its relatives are majestic.   The trees tend to be bigger there than in the South, and I would like to spend more time learning about the ecology of the NW forests, but I enjoy the forests wherever they are.  They all have their particular beauty. 

The pictures are from Little Beaver Creek Tree Farm in western Oregon.  Below are new trees planted in back of “heritage trees” left for cover, wildlife & beauty.

Lobbyists have a bad reputation and there sure are some high profile crooks, but no democray can properly work w/o lobbyists and the bigger the government the more you need lobbyist.

Most people know more about their own business than others know about it.  That just makes sense.  That doesn’t mean that others do not have strong opinions and many are enthusastic about spending other people’s money and creating regulations that prevent them from using their property.  Forestry is a strong example.

About 60% of America’s productive forests are family owned, but most people don’t know that.  They think that government or big business runs the show and they are eager to control what they consider a common resource.    It is possible to be both ignorant and passionate and this state of affairs describes much of the urban-based environmental movement.    (As Yeats wrote nearly ninety years ago, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.  That remains true.)

Below is a forest harvest.  You can see the different generations of trees.   In the middle are sixty year old trees.  Those trees are the result of a clearcut done a generation ago and you can see how the forest has come back strong and in good health.  Behind them is a planting of trees around ten years old.  The clearcut was done recently and will be replanted next year.  Douglas fir has to be managed with clearcut, since the young trees of this species require full light.  This kind of forestry was abused in the past and that colors people’s perceptions today.  Things have changed, but perceptions have not and the use of clearcut in forestry is misunderstood by the general public.  Well managed forests grow faster and are less prey to bugs, blowdowns and fires.

BTW – the guys doing the cutting work for Pihl forestry.  They were featured on the History Channel show called “Ax Men.”

Forest owners are more interested in taking care of their forests than following the politics of forestry.    Yet very often the biggest risk to their trees and their freedom to make decisions about what is best comes not from bark beetles or ice storms but from Washington or their state capitals.   There is a fairly constant assault on our rights usually from well meaning people often led by committed radicals who dislike the very idea of private property. 

Take a very simple example – rabbits.   Any gardener knows that rabbits are not uncommon or endangered.  However, there are some places where they are less common.   In the State of Maine, for example, cottontails are in decline as the cut-over lands where they thrived are growing into mature forests.    Is this a problem?  It could be if the government gets involved.   The simple fact is that all animals and plants have a natural range and each natural range has a limit.   If you go to Florida you find lots of alligators.   In Wisconsin you don’t find any outside the zoo.   Someplace between Wisconsin and Florida is the edge of the alligators’ natural habitat.  Along that line, alligators are rare.   You could say that they are locally endangered.   Should the government specifically regulate and protect alligators at this line?  Of course not.   Natural ranges naturally expand and contract.  Everyplace in America lies on the edge of some plant or animal range, so everyplace in America has some locally endangered plants or animals.  You can see the potential for unscrupulous individuals to call for more regulation.   Throw in some cute pictures and you can get laws passed to stop “timber barons” like me and my friends from harvesting their trees. 

Above is a ponderosa pine planation that replaced a fir forest.  The douglas fir blew down in a wind storm in 1996.  Foresters discovered that the trees had root rot and that it was still there, kind of like mold in your house.  Root rot spreads through the living roots of the fir.  The only way to get rid of it is to plant species that will not get it.  The pines are not immune, but they can resist better than the fir.   The fir forest would regenerate naturally and be blown down again and again because of the rot, which would spread.  The fir forest would be chronically harmed by the root rot for a long time, maybe for centuries until a forest fir destroyed it.  One of the benefits of a well managed forest is to find and fix these kinds of problems.

The pines are a subspecies of the ponderosa pine that specifically grows west of the Cascades.   The ponderosa pines that are common on the eastern side or in the rockies do not grow well in the pacific coast regions.

I am glad that my lobbyist keeps track of these sorts of things for me.  I have other things to do.  I cannot spend the time and I do not have the skills to keep track of all the sneaky attempts control my land.  

I am thankful for some lobbyists to protect me from politicians & activists.

I attended the recent National Tree Farmer Convention in Portland Oregon.  There were many fine presentations (and I will write more about them) and we got the chance to see first hand how forestry is done in the Pacific Northwest during a field day at the Little Beaver Creek Tree Farm.  It was very interesting to see how forestry is done another part of the country.  We work in different ecological, political and economic environments, but forestry is similar wherever you go and we can always learn a lot from talking to each other and sharing experiences. 

Forest certification was the subject of several presentations.  This is not a new topic.  It has been a central part of tree farming since the creation of the American Tree Farm System sixty-seven years ago, but new developments in forest certification will help tree farmers in Virginia.   Until recently, the biggest advantages for owners as part of the tree farm system came from the advice and assistance they could receive to better grow their trees while protecting water resources, soils and wildlife.  Having the familiar tree farm sign in from of your property indicating that your tree farm was up to standards was a source of justifiable pride, but the other aspects of membership had greater practical value.  Times are changing.  As consumers all across the globe become more aware of the impact of forestry on the environment, buyers in the U.S. and especially internationally are increasingly looking for and demanding wood that comes forests where the owners practice sustainable forestry.  

Below is Mt Hood from our hotel.  Portland is a pleasant city with beautiful surroundings.

Tree farmers have been doing that since the American Tree Farm System was founded in 1941; certification is a way to prove and demonstrate that high standard to others.  It is likely that in the near future that wood for certified forests will command a price premium.   Representatives of firms trading internationally tell us that it is already an advantage to sell certified wood in places like Europe.   Beyond that, certification will help tree farmers gain position in emerging markets concerning such things as green buildings, bioenergy and potential carbon trading programs.   No carbon trading will be possible unless a forest is certified, for example.  

The American Tree Farm System (ATFS) is the oldest and largest forest certification program in the United States, but even a respected and well-known organization like ours can use friends and we recently got some more when it was announced in August that ATFS was endorsed by the Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC).   This is important because PEFC is recognized internationally.  This means the ATFS wood meets an accepted international standard and will find greater acceptance in world markets. Only around 10% of the wood sold globally is from certified forests, but this is growing rapidly.  PEFC is by far the largest certification network, currently comprising thirty-five independent national forest certification programs with 510 million certified acres in the various programs.  Among the countries with PEFC certified forests are such places as Canada, Norway, Sweden, Finland, Spain Brazil and Malaysia.  

ATFS is the acknowledged certification system for small American forest owners and will work to ensure that standards are and remain appropriate for this constituency – people like you and me.  The partnership with PEFC will not change the way tree farmers interact with ATFS on a day-to-day basis.   Individual owners will still have their point of contact with state tree farm committees.  State committees in turn will be certified by tree farm regions 

No building material is more environmentally friendly than wood, considering competing materials such as plastics, metal or concrete.  Wood is biodegradable and completely renewable.   Beyond that, good forestry can do more to address the problems of water purity, soil protection, biodiversity and climate change than almost any other activity practiced over large areas of the world.  In other words, forests and wood products are part of the solution to many environmental challenges.  It is time that forest producers got credit for the good they do.  Most people do not know that the majority of timberland in the U.S. is privately owned and managed by owners like us, concerned with the future of our land.  Certification is a way to explain what we do to a wider world.