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CAPITAL IDEAS -- LIVE!
JUNE 2008
News Conference for Forest Owners
Sponsored by the Alabama Forest Owners' Association, Inc.
This Conference was recorded on JUNE 18,
2008.
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Hayes D. Brown
starting time: (00:00) |
Moderator
Hayes D. Brown, attorney and forest owner, will moderate this news
conference. Hayes' email address is
hbrown@hayesbrown.com.
Click Here to View & Hear Prior News Conferences.
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M. Reed Hopper
(00:30)
Hear Conference |
Prescribed Fire Threatened by Polar Bear ESA Listing?
Reed Hopper is a Principal
Attorney in the Environmental Law Practice Group of "the oldest and most
successful legal organization that litigates for property rights and a
balanced approach to environmental protection," the Pacific
Legal Foundation. According to a May 14 PLF news release, "The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service’s decision to list the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act
was misguided, and Pacific Legal Foundation is prepared to mount a legal
challenge..." Alabama forest owners are already restricted in the use
of prescribed fire in some counties during the summer months. Now this new
"problem" may restrict controlled burning even more. If Hopper is right, all
of us will see rising gasoline prices and electricity rates. We wonder,
if
the Arctic ever warmed in the past, why the polar bear didn't go extinct
long ago?
Phone: (425) 576-0484
Email:
mrh@pacificlegal.org
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Chris Isaacson
(04:30)
Hear Conference |
Property Tax Lawsuit
Chris Isaacson is Executive
Vice President of the Alabama Forestry Association based in
Montgomery, Alabama. He joins us today to bring us up-to-date on a
lawsuit filed March 13, that claims our property tax assessment methods
are racially discriminatory and shortchange black public school students.
According to Isaacson, forestland property taxes in counties such as Shelby,
Baldwin, Madison and other rapidly growing metropolitan areas could see
increases of 1000% if the plaintiffs win the case. To help you keep up with this case, which Chris says
could be worse than
Amendment One in 2003, he is posting copies of the legal filings and a
brief synopsis of the lawsuit on AFA's website. Go to
www.alaforestry.org and click
on Property Tax Lawsuit.
*
Phone: (334) 265-8733
Email:
cisaacson@alaforestry.org
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Marty McElhaney
(09:12)
Hear Conference |
Cap & Trade -- What is it?
Marty McElhaney is
Corporate Secretary and Newsletter Editor of
Liberty Matters
and is based in Smiley, Texas. In the
June 10 issue of the Liberty Matters email newsletter, McElhaney
discusses a bill named
America's Climate Security Act (S-3036). Fortunately, the bill
did not pass, but, because of the likely makeup of next year's Congress and
the fact that Obama and McCain both support the bill's goals, it will be
back. CO2
emitters (power companies and other fossil fuel users) will evidently have
to buy their right to emit CO2
in a public auction run by the U.S. Government.
Newsweek's
Robert Samuelson says, "Let's Just Call It 'Cap and Tax.' " The power
companies and other emitters will find it easier to capture some of their
carbon by buying carbon offsets from owners of forestland (see
Tim Albritton, 5/21/08) instead of smoke stack technology. That sounds
good for forest owners, but
it may be bad for buyers of electricity and other fossil fuel users.
Some believe that Congress may even be trying to
solve the wrong problem.
Request a free subscription to Liberty
Matters email newsletter: 1-800-847-0227
Phone: (830) 236-5901
Email:
mmctmr@texas-skies.com
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Thomas Cunilio
(12:28)
Hear Conference |
Gainesville to Build Biomass Fired Power Plant
Tom Cunilio is the Founder
and Executive Vice President
of the Florida Renewable RC&D Council, a non-profit organization covering
five counties in North Central Florida. He and the Council are assisting the
City of Gainesville, Florida in its goal to build a
100 megawatt power plant that will be fired by bio-mass. Based on
studies done by the University of Florida, the plant will be fueled on
urban waste, such as tree trimmings, and logging residue from nearby rural
forestland with the remainder of the fuel coming from the harvest of
heretofore non-commercial small wood (under 4" diameter) and pulpwood size
materials. If Cunilio and Gainesville reach their goal, a new market for
small, low value wood will help forest owners through-out the region.
Phone: (386) 418-0381
Email:
t.cosaf@cox.net
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Dr. Jon E. Barry
(15:55)
Hear Conference |
Native Food Plots
Jon Barry is a Forestry
Specialist at the
Southwest Research
& Extension Center of the University of Arkansas
Cooperative Extension Service.
This is the time of year when hunters are beginning to work on game food
plots (or are thinking about working on their plots). Landowners who hunt or
who lease land to hunters may want to listen to Jon's comments. He is doing
research on using native plants in food plots and will describe some of the
benefits of moving to natives.
Phone: (870) 777-9702 x 112
Email:
jbarry@uaex.edu
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Kris Irwin
(19:23)
Hear Conference |
Soils Maps with Assist from Forest*A*Syst
Kris Irwin is a Public
Service Associate, Warnell School of Forestry & Natural Resources, The
University of Georgia – Athens. He is the instructional designer for the
Forest*A*Syst
website which focuses on giving forest owners a taste of forest management
activities and an opportunity for self-assessment. Today Kris is going to
point us towards creating a soils map of our property with the help of his
website. When you finish creating your soils map, Kris would like you to
take the Self-Assessment Questionnaire found below the
Get Started! link (see step 12).
- Open
www.ForestASyst.org
- Click on Profile Your Land (left
side menu boxes)
- Click on the State where your land is
located
- Click on the County where your land
is located
- Scroll Down to Find Your Land --
(you may have to zoom in or out or grab the map and move it with the
little hand)
- Left Click on your land and Placemark
will appear (little red balloon) (latitude and longitude will
fill-in below the map)
- Click on "Submit Property Location"
- Click on Print
Aerial Photo of Your Property
- Center your property and click on
print button on your browser
- Click on Return Button ( <== ) to
leave the map and return to previous webpage
- Click on
Tutorial to Learn How to Use Web Soil Survey or
- Click on Get
Started!
- In the WebSoilSurvey Webpage, click
on Latitude and Longitude (your lat and long will appear)
- Click on View (the U.S. Map will
fade and an old aerial photo of your land will appear)
- Click on the AOI icon (Look in
the tool bar below the words "Area of Interest Interactive Map")
- Draw a red line around your
Land by click and moving the cross
- When blue cross hatching appears on map,
Click on Soil Map tab (above left) (Map Unit Legend appears along
with a soil map of your land)
- Click on "Printable Version and Print
your Soils Map.
Considerations for Forest Management on Alabama Soils
Phone: (706) 542-7412
Email:
irwin@warnell.uga.edu
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Martin Copping
(22:48)
Hear Conference |
High-End GIS "Software As A Service"
Martin Copping is Vice President of Operations
at Geo-Visus, Inc.,
a company that specializes in making high-end GIS (Global Information
System) software and data easily available to users. If you have already
bought inexpensive software, but couldn't justify the expense of
ESRI software (have
you seen training sessions in our Calendar of
Events for ArcGIS?), you may want to look again at Martin's product.
He calls it "software as a service" and it is available along with your data
from your Internet browser whenever AND wherever you are connected to the
Internet. Martin will host a Webinar on
July 23 at 3 PM Central Time (sign up here) to give you an in-depth
demonstration of
GISLite©™. We recognize that Software as a Service may not be for
every member of AFOA, but for that small group among our 7,800 members, this
one's for you.
Phone: 1-888-724-4447 x 401
Email:
mcopping@geovisus.com
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