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Hayes D. Brown

starting time: (00:00)
Comment

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.

David P. Tenny

(00:35)
Hear Conference

Comment

Dave Tenny is President and CEO of the National Alliance of Forest Owners (NAFO) based in Washington, DC. NAFO recently made public the results of a study that could give valuable support to private landowners and others who question the seemingly insatiable urge for government to acquire more and more land. The study may help you explain the value of private versus public ownership of forestland to friends or state legislators. "The study found a significant gap between the contributions made [on a nation-wide basis] by privately-owned forests over other ownership types. On average, they generate $277,000 in state GDP per 1,000 acres, while public forests generate just $41,000 per 1,000 acres." Substituting Alabama's numbers from the study, the previous sentence might read: In Alabama, private forestland generates $241,000 in state GDP per 1,000 acres while public forests generate just $5,000 per 1,000 acres. We are eager to hear how Dave Tenny and NAFO plan to use the study in their efforts to defend and promote private ownership of forestland in the United States. The study was commissioned by NAFO and conducted by Forest2Market, Inc.

Overview and In-depth information:

• Press Release
• Full Report
• Interactive Map

Phone: (202) 367-1251
Email: dtenny@nafoalliance.org

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Jeff Helms

(04:35)
Hear Conference

Comment

Jeff Helms is Communications Director for the Alabama Farmers Federation and has found himself in the news lately explaining the Federation's position related to the possible sunsetting of the Forever Wild Program. We suspect the "Save the Forever Wild Program" promoters are using Jeff and the Federation as a straw man to gain access to local news outlets. It would be nice though, if the costs of the program were thoroughly discussed before the state legislature attempts to reestablish it for another 20 years. Forever Wild has used money from the Alabama Trust Fund to buy more than 200,000 acres since 1992. According to NAFO's interactive map (see above), Alabama has 21,302,238 acres of private forestland and 1,405,539 of public forestland. We ask again, How much is enough? and should also ask, How much does 200,000 acres of forestland in public ownership cost the state each year - forever?

Phone: (334) 288-3900
Email: jhelms@alfafarmers.org

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Chris Isaacson

(09:23)
Hear Conference

Comment

Chris Isaacson is the Executive Vice-President of the Alabama Forestry Association and closely watches the activities of state lawmakers for his members. In past years we have seen legislative attempts to raise property taxes, close up gaps in our eminent domain laws, create current-use tax assessment, remove current-use tax assessment, and more. An excerpt from AFA Newsroom, 1/15/10 follows:

Alabama Legislature Opens 2010 Regular Session

The Alabama Legislature opened for business this week. Legislators were welcomed to Montgomery with the daunting task of balancing the budget looming before them. However, prior to accomplishing that task, we can expect them to address other broad issues including gambling, road building and ethics.

Specific to our industry are bills drafted by the Alabama Forestry Commission strengthening penalties for arson and theft of equipment and timber as well as one bill clarifying that it is illegal to manipulate scales.

Additionally, we are following bills that would make the Joint Energy Committee permanent, create an Energy Research and Development Grant Program and affect building codes for private and public buildings.

Bills that affect taxes will be monitored including fuel taxes, increased income taxes to offset removing the sales taxes on food, and displaced revenue from the General Fund to support a road building program.

Environmental bills include the annual toxic torts and criminal littering legislation. For a list of House bills we are tracking, click here, and for a list of Senate bills, click here.
 

Phone: (334) 265-8733 x 124
Email: cisaacson@alaforestry.org

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Cassady V. Brewer

(14:00)
Hear Conference

Comment

Cass Brewer is a partner in the law firm Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP and "...focuses his practice in the areas of income tax planning, business formations, mergers and acquisitions, partnerships and limited liability companies, tax controversy, tax-exempt investments in real estate, and wealth transfer and protection. He is based in Atlanta, Georgia. Mr. Brewer recently co-authored a paper entitled: Client Alert: Temporary Estate Tax Repeal that was picked up by the Forest Landowners Association and sent out in their January 14 issue of Fast Facts. You are probably aware that the Estate Tax went to zero on January 1, 2010 and may or may not be changed this year before it returns in 2011 at much higher rates. From the Client Alert: "For married individuals with children and with tax-motivated Wills or revocable trusts (i.e., Wills that leave the estate tax exemption amount to a family trust and the balance to a surviving spouse), the temporary repeal probably justifies some action on your part." 

Phone: (404) 504-7627
Email: cbrewer@mmmlaw.com

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Dr. Rebecca J. Barlow

(17:59)
Hear Conference

Comment

Becky Barlow is Assistant Professor and Forestry Extension Specialist at the School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences at Auburn University and, among other areas of interest, has had research projects on benefit/cost analysis of managing forests for multiple uses. Becky co-authored Cost and Cost Trends for Forestry Practices in the South, Forest Landowner magazine, Sep-Oct 2009, and then adapted the information for a shorter publication, Costs for Common Forestry Practices in the South. Costs from 1996 to 2008 for the following practices are covered in the report.

• Controlled, prescribed burning
• Mechanical site preparation
• Planting by hand and by machine
• Precommercial thinning
• Fertilization
• Timber cruising
• Marking trees for harvest

Phone: (334) 844-1019
Email: rjb0003@auburn.edu

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Dr. Gerald McGwin

(20:26)
Hear Conference

Comment

Gerald McGwin is on the faculty of the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he is currently Professor and Vice Chair of Epidemiology with secondary appointments in the Departments of Ophthalmology and Surgery. Since more than half of AFOA members lease land to hunters we thought you would be interested in reading a report on Dr. McGwin's research on tree stand related injuries. "McGwin said younger hunters may have higher injury rates due to a willingness to take risks, less exposure to safety information and more time spent hunting than older hunters." "'In addition to a broad safety education campaign regarding the use of tree stands, the vulnerable young hunter population should be specifically targeted to decrease the number of preventable injuries,' he said. 'Manufacturers of tree stands can aid in prevention by providing more support for the hunters, particularly for the minimalistic stands such as climbing or ladder stands. Although tree stand-related injuries are a major cause of injury among the hunting population, they are preventable.'" We suspect any efforts by landowners to reduce hunting accidents will help keep liability insurance rates down in the future.

Phone: (205) 325-8117
Email: mcgwin@uab.edu

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Dr. Michael Cunningham

(23:20)
Hear Conference

Comment

Michael Cunningham is a forest geneticist and director of product development at ArborGen, LLC. You may have seen ArborGen's advertisement in AFOA's newsletter -- does Alabama SuperTree Nursery ring a bell? -- and you may have even bought trees from their Selma nursery formerly owned by International Paper Company. But  did you ever think you might be able to buy freeze-tolerant eucalytus seedlings from the SuperTree Nursery? While the cold-hardy eucalytus seedlings won't be available for a few years, researchers like Dr. Cunningham are improving their ability to live in our South Alabama climate through a process called genetic modification. From an article in businesstn.com entitled, International Paper turns to biotechnology to grow a better box:

"'Eucalyptus has an exceptionally fine fiber that excels in producing a clean white paper, which is why pulp from the trees is in high demand around the world,' says ArborGen CEO Barbara Wells. 'As a biomass stock, eucalyptus is one of the fastest-growing trees in the world, which makes it an ideal biomass plant for biofuels and bioenergy.'"

"Today, conventional forestry methods grow between 500 and 600 trees an acre. ArborGen wants to increase that to 750 trees per acre. Under current plans, seedlings could be available commercially by 2011 and harvesting would occur seven years later.

See also:

• Landowner workshop February 9 in Jasper, Florida
• Eucalyptus Facts

Phone: (850) 514-9916
Email: mwcunni@arborgen.com

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Dr. Robert B. Rummer

(27:11)
Hear Conference

Comment

Bob Rummer is Project Leader, Forest Operations Research, USDA Forest Service, Southern Research Station in Auburn, Alabama. We asked Dr. Rummer to join us today to tell us why stumpage prices go up on sites that remain dry during long spells of rainy weather and how we might improve access to those sites in order to be ready to sell timber from them during the next rainy spell.

Bob recommends we read the following publications:

• A landowner's guide to building forest access roads by Richard Wiest  
• Forest roads and construction of associated water diversion devices by Dick Brinker  
• Alabama's Best Management Practices for Forestry  

Phone: (334) 826-8700
Email: rrummer@fs.fed.us

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