Starting Time: 00:00
Hayes D. Brown, attorney and forest owner, will moderate this news conference. Hayes’ email address is hbrown@hayesbrown.com.
Starting Time: 00:57
Margaret Byfield serves as Executive Director of American Stewards of Liberty, a nonprofit organization dedicated to protecting private property rights, defending the use of our land, and restoring local control. She’s going to shed light upon President Biden’s “30×30” program, which was pushed through in Executive Order 14008 and is aimed to put more land in the hands of the federal government by the year 2030. In addition to taking the land out of the hands of private owners, the executive order could be used as a platform for even more government overreach when it comes to forest management. As Byfield says, “30×30 is an unconstitutional policy shift, moving us from a nation founded on private property principles to one controlled by the administrative state.
Starting Time: 08:35
Scott Jones is Chief Executive Officer of the Forest Landowners Association (FLA). The FLA is on the frontlines fighting the battle of the recent critical habitat designation of the black pinesnake. The black pinesnake is found only in Mississippi and Alabama and is a native to longleaf pine forests. Because of its endangered status, the government recently issued a critical habitat designation. The FLA has filed a lawsuit because the designation drastically hinders the rights (and reduces the property value) of private landowners who find themselves with the critical habitat designation.
Starting Time: 11:50
Jennifer Fawcett is an Extension Associate in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources, Extension Forestry at North Carolina State University. She is also a co-author of “Recent Research on Perceived Risks, Legal Liabilities, and Insurance Coverage Associated with Prescribed Burning on Private Lands.” In the piece, she highlights the benefits of prescribed burning and the potential ways private forest landowners can protect themselves from any associated risks.
Starting Time: 17:13
Mike Powell is a Client Solutions Specialist for Forest2Market, a global provider of timber pricing, cost benchmarks, and in-depth analytics. In a recent blog post, Timberland Ownership in the US South, Forest2Market looked at the issue of lumber prices and why landowners keep growing more trees despite the fierce competition and huge oversupply of standing timber.
