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CAPITAL IDEAS -- LIVE!
JANUARY 2009
News Conference for Forest Owners
Sponsored by the Alabama Forest Owners' Association, Inc.
This Conference was recorded on JANUARY 21, 2009.
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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. Lawrence W. Reed
(00:34)
Hear Conference |
Freedom & Private Forests
Lawrence Reed is president of
the Foundation for Economic
Freedom (FEE), "the nation's oldest free enterprise think tank and
publisher for half a century of
The Freeman
magazine." Thoughtful understanding of what it takes to make very long-term
investments is badly needed by, not only the general public, but also the
people who make the investments. Sometimes even they don't understand the
environment in which they live and invest. At AFOA we like to believe that a
country and its forests are reflections of its citizens ability to make free
choices. We hope you agree.
From The Freeman magazine:
The Pursuit of Happiness: Economics and Property Rights by Walter E.
Williams
The Market and Nature by Fred L. Smith
The Great 19th Century Timber Heist Revisited by T. J. Iijima and
Jane S. Shaw
Phone: (914) 591-7230
Email: lreed@fee.org
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Ms. Sara S. Baldwin
(03:58)
Hear Conference |
Timber Investments vs. the Stock Market
Sara Baldwin is senior editor
and assistant manager of
Timber
Mart-South, a timber pricing service housed at the Daniel B. Warnell
School of Forest Resources, The University of Georgia. Sara and co-authors
Thomas G. Harris, Jr. and Jacek Siry gathered 10 years of timber price data
and stock market data and wrote
Timber Investments for Tough
Times, Forest Landowner magazine, November/December 2008.
Landowners frequently wonder if their timber and management investments
(standing trees, tree planting, herbicide treatments, fertilizer
applications, and others) are competitive with the stock market. Based on
third quarter 2008 prices, "All timber categories fared better than
stocks in this exercise when growth and dividends were considered." Sara
tells us what has happened to the comparison since September 2008, and she
also discusses Alabama timber prices, which display a bit of a premium in
the Southeast (see below).
More Price Details from Timber Mart-South:
Phone: (706) 542 4760
Email: sbaldwin@warnell.uga.edu
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Dr. T. Adam Tullos
(08:58)
Hear Conference |
Increase Value with Help of Neighbors
Adam Tullos is the North
Mississippi Wildlife Associate for Mississippi State University's
Natural
Resource Enterprises Program. We asked Adam to help us appreciate how
landowner neighbors might work together to accomplish goals that could be
difficult if handled independently. If you are a fairly small landowner, you
may have found some forest or wildlife management activities difficult or
nearly impossible to accomplish. For example, doing prescribed burning on
small tracts can be expensive and risky. Trying to improve the deer herd on
your small tract may pay off for your neighbors instead of you. How would a
landowner get started working with neighbors? Would it be necessary to
create and sign contracts or joint management plans?
Suggested reading:
Phone: (662) 566-2201
Email: adamt@ext.msstate.edu
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Dr. Al Schuler
(11:32)
Hear Conference |
Mortgage Meltdown vs. Housing Demographics
Al Schuler is a Research
Economist with the USDA Forest Service at their Princeton, West Virginia
Research Laboratory. Al sends AFOA and many others a monthly Housing
Market Report. The cover letter with the September 2008 report included
the sentence: "I hope all of you are doing well, and somehow managing to
deal effectively with the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression."
While Al remained (and remains) quite upbeat about the power of housing
demographics to improve lumber demand, in December 2008 he reported that
more large mortgage foreclosure waves are likely to hit us "over the next 3
- 4 years." (see third slide in the first bullet below) He projects (see slide 10 in the Selected group below)
that remodeling will become increasingly important, and also projects new
housing construction will begin to increase in 2010. In short, Al says
there will be an improved market for your sawtimber in a couple of years. Be
patient.
Phone: (304) 431-2727
Email: aschuler@fs.fed.us
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Dr. Cetin Yuceer
(16:29)
Hear Conference |
Pine Growers May Benefit from Research Discovery
Cetin Yuceer is an assistant
professor in the
Department of Forestry at Mississippi State University who is involved
in some exciting research that will be of interest to most members of AFOA.
The southern pine beetle (SPB) is a huge problem for southern pine
timber growers and urban shade tree owners. SPB outbreaks,
since 1999, have caused $1.5 billion in standing timber losses on 1 million
acres. This is equivalent to the lumber needed to build approximately
187,000 single-family homes. In the forest, no effective and practical pest management tactics have been developed for these beetles other than rapid removal and
processing of infested trees to reduce further infestations and
losses. Recently Dr. Yuceer
and his colleagues at the USDA Forest Service, the University of
Wisconsin (Madison), and Harvard have discovered an interesting dependency
of SPB to another organism for their survival. From
Science magazine, 10/3/08: "In a notably intricate system,
southern pine beetles use symbiotic fungi to help overcome host-tree
defenses and to provide nutrition for their larvae." This discovery may
ultimately lead to cost-effective control methods of beetles with low
environmental impacts.
For in depth information about the research and the beetle:
Phone: (662) 325-2795
Email: mcy1@ra.msstate.edu
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Mr. Frank Green
(19:58)
Hear Conference |
Nationwide Silvicultural Exemption Under Pressure
Frank Green is Coordinator of
the Georgia Forestry
Commission's statewide Forest Management Programs plus the agency's
Environmental Affairs program which includes forest water quality and
wetlands Best Management Practices (BMP). Ongoing forest management
activities such as timber harvesting, site preparation for tree planting,
road building and others have long enjoyed an
exemption from Clean Water Act
permit requirements. If it weren't for this
Nationwide Silvicultural
Exemption the cost of harvesting and planting trees would be much
higher and probably prohibitive on small acreages. So news that a Georgia
judge decided that timber harvesting in bottomland cypress-tupelo stands that
contain large trees is not necessarily an ongoing silvicultural operation
is not good news -- at least for owners of big trees in bottomlands.
2/3/09 From Frank Green: "Here
is a link to the EPA language:
http://www.epa.gov/owow/NPS/MMGI/Chapter3/ch3-2j.html . This is taken
from the National Management Measures for Forestry. This document goes into
further recommendations but are just that – recommendations that don’t
supersede State BMPs." Alabama's BMPs are described at
http://forestry.alabama.gov/BMPs.aspx.
2/3/09 Suggestions from Frank Green
for landowners with bottomland hardwood stands in jurisdictional wetlands:
Write and maintain a forest management plan that
1) describes how these stands originated, either naturally following
a cut or artificial regeneration,
2) includes management recommendations for these stands' passive
management while protecting them from fire, wind, flooding, beavers, etc.,
3) includes a harvesting plan, and finally,
4) describes how these stands will be regenerated and maintained in
forest land management use.
From the Plaintiff's and Judge's
Perspective:
Phone: (478) 751-3498
Email: fgreen@gfc.state.ga.us
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Mr. Andy Whitaker
(24:15)
Hear Conference |
How to Keep Your Head When Everyone Else is Losing Theirs
Andy Whitaker is publisher
and editor
of Wildlife Trends
Journal, a bi-monthly publication offering research based wildlife
management information to landowners and land managers throughout the
Southeast. At a recent ideas session
conducted by AFOA, Andy expressed frustration with the growing movement,
seemingly worldwide, to condemn long lists of plants to the
Non-Native Invasive Species List. He was concerned because many
plant species that find themselves on The List are useful
wildlife management tools. He recognizes that some plants like cogongrass,
privet, and kudzu should be universally condemned, but wonders if, with
proper management, Japanese honeysuckle, autumn olive, and others might be
looked at a bit more favorably.
Helpful links:
Phone: 1-800-441-6826
Email: whitaker553@charter.net
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Mr. Clint Bentz
(26:58)
Hear Conference |
Sunshine on a Cloudy Day
Clint Bentz is a Certified
Public Accountant and Certified Management Accountant with
Boldt, Carlisle & Smith,
LLC, in Stayton, Oregon. He has been a leader in the
Ties to the Land
program and his parents,
Ron and Barbara Bentz, were winners of the 2002 Tree Farmer of the Year
Award. With a new administration entering the White House, a Congress
controlled by the Democratic Party, estate and other tax laws that would
have been rewritten this year regardless of the party in power, and timber
prices as low as many of us can remember, Clint suggests it may be a time to
review our gifting plans. If a family were planning to set up a gifting
process anyway ("80% of landowners view succession as a top of mind issue")
then the current decline in timber values "provides a wonderful opportunity
to move more property to the next generation than would have been possible
otherwise." Clint advises that "while none of us really want to be selling
anything in this current environment, we have an excellent opportunity right
now to transfer these assets and let the coming upswing in values and the
future appreciation happen in our children’s estates rather than our own."
Because of the complexity of the various estate planning strategies,
Clint encourages landowners to talk to competent professionals who
specialize in estate planning.
Phone: (503) 769-2186
Email: cbentz@bcsllc.com
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