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CAPITAL IDEAS -- LIVE!
SEPTEMBER 2008
News Conference for Forest Owners
Sponsored by the Alabama Forest Owners' Association, Inc.
This Conference was recorded on SEPTEMBER 17, 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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Dr. H. Sterling Burnett
(00:28)
Hear Conference |
A Natural Resource is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Sterling Burnett, is a Senior Fellow at the
National Center for Policy
Analysis, an organization whose "goal is to develop and promote
private alternatives to government regulation and control, solving problems
by relying on the strength of the competitive, entrepreneurial private
sector." He recently co-authored a paper entitled,
In Order to
Extinguish Fires, Don't Let Logging Burn Out. This report couldn't
have been published at a better time, with fires destroying timber in
Western forests almost daily, the financial markets melting down, and high
fuel costs threatening our way of life. One segment of the report compares
the reaction to wildfire damage by the "owners" of National Forest land and
the owners of private forest land in California. Be sure to read the
paragraph that starts with "Bureaucratic paralysis" if nothing else. The
sheer waste of the forest resource on the federal lands should be a national
embarrassment; Burnett seems to be making it his goal to bring us to the
point of embarrassment (or anger) so we, as a nation, can begin to make
rational resource decisions.
Other NCPA Papers of Interest:
Phone: (972) 386-6272
Email:
sterling.burnett@ncpa.org
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Dr. H. Ken Cordell
(04:17)
Hear Conference |
Trends in Nature-Based Outdoor Recreation
Ken
Cordell, a Project Leader and Pioneering Scientist in Forest Service
Research, spends his work-days studying how other people have fun. His
latest report entitled,
The Latest on Trends in Nature-Based Outdoor Recreation caught our
eye when we noted that Cordell's results seem to buck the findings of Oliver
Pergams and Patricia Zaradic. The title of their paper is
Evidence for a Fundamental and Pervasive
Shift away from Nature-Based Recreation. We aren't sure who is
right, but we know that outdoor nature-based recreation is a big business
and seems to be growing everyday. Have you visited a
Bass Pro Shop or
Cabela's lately?
Ken suggests you also review the
IRIS Series of Reports
Phone: (706) 559-4263
Email: kcordell@fs.fed.us
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Allen E. Varner
(08:27)
Hear Conference |
Forest Resource Report
Allen Varner is in charge of
the Alabama Forestry Commission's
Stewardship and Legacy programs and is with us today to highlight some of
the contents of the Commission's new
Forest Resource Report 2007. Using tables and color maps, the report
breaks out several "economic status indicators of the forest industry and
natural resources in Alabama for 2007." You will likely find it interesting
to see how your county compares to the rest of the state.
Economic Status Indicators in the Report:
- 2007 Timber Harvests Volume
- 2007 Timber Price Trends
- 2006 Timber and other Agricultural
Commodities Rankings (latest statistics available)
- 2002 Labor, Payroll, and Number of
Forestry-related Establishments (latest statistics available)
- 2007 Forest Products Investments in
New & Expanding Businesses
- 2006 Commercial Forestland Acres and
Ownership (latest FIA statistics available)
- 2006 Forest Timber Inventory
Statistics (latest FIA statistics available)
Phone: (334) 240-9308
Email:
allen.varner@forestry.alabama.gov
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Eben Lehman
(11:07)
Hear Conference |
Remembering Forestry & Forests with
Photos
Eben Lehman is the Technical
Archivist with the Forest History Society,
"a non-profit institution that promotes and rewards scholarship in the
fields of forest and conservation history through programs in research,
publication, and education. The FHS Library and Archives maintain rich
research resources that document the myriad relationships that have existed
between people, forests, and natural resources throughout history. The FHS
Archives include a collection of over 25,000 historic photos, which are
continually being digitized and added to an existing
online photo database. These photos
provide a unique visual record of the history of forests, the forest
products industry, and lumbering and sawmilling practices." We thought
forest owners would find the photo archives interesting and may see ways to
document personal forest management stories and successes through
well-organized photo collections. (without pictures, my grandson will
never believe the hilltop campsite he enjoys was wrestled away from kudzu by
his grandmother, his dad, and me)
Phone: (919) 682-9319
Email: eben.lehman@duke.edu
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Wayne Bassett
(15:30)
Hear Conference |
New Chestnuts & Pears for Wildlife
Wayne Bassett is President of
The Wildlife Group,
nursery that specializes in trees and shrubs beneficial to wildlife. "Over
the past six years Wayne has spent a considerable amount of time looking for
superior trees to add to The Wildlife Group. Wayne teamed up with Auburn
University’s 75 year old Chinese Chestnut program and now the New AU Buck
Chestnut Package and the Turkey Package has been introduced."
Among other things, Wayne was looking for varieties of plants that will extend fruit drop-time to improve chances that food will be available when needed.
A few pages from the
The Wildlife Group
website:
Phone: 1-800-221-9703
Email:
wildlifegroup@mindspring.com
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Jonathan S. Kays
(19:19)
Hear Conference |
GPS Units Continue to Improve
Jonathan Kays, Extension Specialist - Natural Resources,
University of
Maryland Cooperative Extension, recently wrote an article for
foresters on how to use GPS [Global Positioning Systems] in forestry
fieldwork. We called Jonathan and he agreed to talk to us today about
Selecting, Buying, Enhancing, and Using your low-cost GPS unit. He has put
together
a big
collection of training aids from fall workshops (in Maryland) to a 73
page Beginner GPS Training manual.
GPS
Training Examples:
Phone: (301) 432-2767 x 323
Email: jkays@umd.edu
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Dr. Brian Roy Lockhart
(22:42)
Hear Conference |
The benefits of sweetgum in bottomland oak management, or...
Sweetgum is Not a Weed
Brian Lockhart is a Research
Forester at the U.S. Forest Service
Center for Bottomland Hardwood Research
at Stoneville,
Mississippi. He was a speaker at AFOA's 2008 Annual Meeting in Selma where
we remember gaining a much better understanding of the word "competition"
between trees. When the wind blows, you can hear the trees competing for
space. Sweetgum acts as a "trainer" species for its oak neighbors. Using
5 slides,
Brian describes mixed species stand development in natural and planted
hardwood sites.
Publications
Using natural stand development patterns in artificial mixtures: a case
study with cherrybark oak and sweetgum in west-central Mississippi
A stand development approach to oak afforestation in the Lower Mississippi
Alluvial Valley <http://www.srs.fs.usda.gov/pubs/> (will be online soon)
Phone: (662) 931-2772
Email: blockhart@fs.fed.us (may
be out of service until October 1, 2008)
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Peter J. Stewart
(26:19)
Hear Conference |
Timber Market Report
Pete Stewart, President and
CEO of
Forest2Market.com,
keeps a close watch on all the factors that affect stumpage prices, but with
the current disarray of the
financial markets, even Pete will be hard pressed to help us understand
timber and forestland values and where they are moving. He discusses
timber price improvements on the far horizon (2009-2010), market structural changes, and
the perfect storm for Alabama forest owners (biomass market, energy prices,
wood fiber market). Pete warns, "I think we have to be careful about
courting businesses that are unsustainable." Take notes!
Phone: (704) 357-0110 x 11
Email:
pete.stewart@forest2market.com
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