Draft Logging Research?

[Tim Harrigan]

@Carl Russell 38295 wrote:

I have seen several properties over the years that I feather brushed into nice woodlots, sold and immediately cut off. I don’t care how you slice it….. that is not forestry, but in our culture it is part of the acceptable continuum that passes for forestry.

Carl

Yes, I was just wondering to what extend a management plan with inventory and valuation became part of property assessment.

[Andy Carson]

I am still stuck on this comparison to organic foods. Mostly because it is a case where having a product that is seen as environmentally aware has been successful. I understand that green cert wood might jsut be “window dressing” focused on marketing rather than real change. I think the same case could be made for industrial scale organic food producers. I think that a small scale producer embody the spririt of the organic movement better. That said, I think that for many consumers, the entry-level product is the mass produced one. I don’t have the stats to back this up, but I think it is true from my experiences. I think it is after buying the mass produced stuff, some people move to another level of understanding. I think many people in this next level might appreciate that being local, or especially knowing the person or people that produce the food and the specific nature of thier practices (on a one-on-one level) is probably more important than having a piece of paper that says they follow specific, somewhat arbitrary rules. Overall, I see commonalities between green wood and mass produced organic food and commonalities between locally produced artisan scale foods and draft wood. It seems to me that organic food consumers had to go through the mass produced “window dressing stage” before going to the the next one. They had to walk before they could run, in other words. I worry that going strait to a marketing strategy for draftwood might be asking consumers and landowners to run before they can walk. Does this worry anyone else? It sure would be nice to have an entry-level half-measure of some sort… Perhaps this is green wood, but it seems this product doesn’t sell. This alone is worrisome.

[Andy Carson]

I was doing a little reading about “green wood” because I was curious. I found the FSC-US Forest Management Standard, and found this passage buried on page 47 of this document under the topic “landscape scale indicators.” I was looking for something else, but stopped here, because this was interesting enough. Don’t you love how they hide this kind of stuff in the fine print of a 122 page document???

ref: http://us.fsc.org/download.fsc-us-forest-management-standard-with-family-forest-indicators.96.pdf

“Intent: The goal of this Indicator is to maintain, enhance, or restore the biological diversity associated with the mix of successional stages by forest type that would occur across the FMU under natural conditions. This goal includes plants, vertebrates, invertebrates, fungi, lichens, and other organisms associated with those plant community types and other elements of site diversity. The goal is not to maximize diversity through management, create “museum forests,” explicitly mimic natural disturbance regimes, or to re-create pre-European-settlement conditions. Non-catastrophic disturbance should be the focus of analyzing for natural disturbance.”

[Rick Alger]

Hi Carl,
Thanks for the reply. I guess we appear to be somewhat at odds regarding silvicultural philosophy, but I don’t think this is the case. I think our apparent differences are mainly owing to the pattern of land ownership in the Milan area that I have to work with. “Landowner” is a term that needs clarification. Most of the land here is held in corporate ownership by groups like Yankee Forest, Twitchell Heirs, White Mountain Lumber or TR Dillon. A good chunk of what is left is either national forest or town owned wood lots. This area was never fully parcelized into the patchwork quilt of farms and woodlots that you have in central VT. The few farmers that are here cut their own wood. There are very few highly educated, wealthy, environmentally committed landowners.

But there are many good loggers with skidders parked, waiting for an opportunity to work at what they do best.

To get good work in this situation I feel persuasive data is vital. Sales pitches will not be conducted at somebody’s kitchen table.
The only thing that will move corporate headquarters or the public at town meeting – or whatever- is something concrete and relatively short term.

Oh Yeah. Yankee Forest does the 30 % canopy removal via strip cuts. What a great data comparison it would provide with “surgical selective harvesting.”

Once in a while I do get work for individual landowners, but mostly my work has been for the larger landholding groups. As you have noted, the pay has never been for what the services are worth.

That differential is what prompts my interest in qualifying the value of animal powered logging.

[Baystatetom]

“But in the long-run I come down to the art, the craft, the pure personal expression of my own creativity. I am doing the kind of work I want to do, the way I want to do it, with inherent levels of personal satisfaction that make me a better father, a better partner, and better citizen, and a better human being than I know I would be if I weren’t doing this……….. And most days I take my profit in this understanding before I even hit the woods. This doesn’t help pay the grain bill, but it certainly takes the sting out of it.”

Thanks Carl for putting my feelings into text,
~Tom

[Carl Russell]

@Rick Alger 38301 wrote:

….. Most of the land here is held in corporate ownership by groups like Yankee Forest, Twitchell Heirs, White Mountain Lumber or TR Dillon. A good chunk of what is left is either national forest or town owned wood lots. ……

Oh Yeah. Yankee Forest does the 30 % canopy removal via strip cuts. What a great data comparison it would provide with “surgical selective harvesting.”

Once in a while I do get work for individual landowners, but mostly my work has been for the larger landholding groups. As you have noted, the pay has never been for what the services are worth.

That differential is what prompts my interest in qualifying the value of animal powered logging.

I agree, Rick, the “marketplace” you work in offers difficult hurdles.

My only comment is that these large landowners are really not managing forests, they are money managers, even national and state lands, as the most politically and culturally accepted guidelines are financial.

However, these landholders are also under significant public scrutiny, and I think that pursuing them with the idea that finding sections that would lend themselves to the capabilities of horse-logging could be really good diversification of their portfolio. What they give up in stumpage to you, for the small volume in comparison to their typical harvests, could add to their bottom line of public opinion, more than it would detract from their financial bottom line.

Add to that a certified association with a regional group of similar operators could build validity, and increase demand for your services as a forestland portfolio greener-upper…..:cool:

Carl

[Rick Alger]

Yes, Yes, YES.

[Andy Carson]

It may have seemed that I was getting sidetracked with the quote from the FSC-US Forest Management Standard earlier, but let me explain why I think this is important to this discussion. I was actually looking through this document to find scientific standards that might be able to extended from FSC to draftwood (with the thought that these test would have some “acceptance” and draftwood might do this even better). Then I came accross the statement above, and I quit looking. When documents and people start talking about “what they are not,” it is almost always because they are immunizing themselves against criticism in these areas. “The purpose is not to make money short term” really means “I know this is not the best way to make money short term, and don’t care.” The previous paragraph makes a series of statements that “they are not.” Although they are attempting to immunize themselves against criticism, these may be the best areas to focus criticism as they already admit these are battles they can not win. Let me reverse these statements and show you what I mean.

“The goal is not to maximize diversity through management” means “We know that other approaches lead to greater diversity, but don’t care.”

I find it interesting that there is a focus on “islands of diversity” in these approaches. The size of the test area is so abitrary and the simple act of picking a large area biases the results greatly. Does there need to be indicator species A, B, and C within an acre, within a square mile, within the state??? The smaller the test area, the more it will show a demonstrable benefit for practices consistant with draftwood. Big scientific gains can be made here.

“(the goal is not to) create museum forests” I interpret to mean “this is going to be ugly, but we don’t care”

‘nff said. Aesthetic appeal is not non-scientific, you just have to poll many people to account for observer bias. This would be a very very strong argument for landowners who are subject to public strutiny, as Carl points out.

“(the goal is not to) explicitly mimic natural disturbance regimes” means “What we are going to do is not natural, but we don’t care”
this is similar to the next statement
“(the goal is not to) re-create pre-European-settlement conditions” means “The forests created by this management plan will not be similar to what was here before, but we don’t care.”

This was where I was going before, comparing the ecology of undisturbed forest to ecologies created by conventional logging, “green” logging, and draftwood logging. Clearly, the industry fears this sort of simple “one of these things is not like the others” comparisons. Perhaps this the the greatest “bang for you buck,” but I am not sure as there will inevitably be differences between all groups. Still, it makes the most scientific sense to me and flows from the logic that naturally evolved systems are the best fit for each environment. Looking for difersity on a smaller scale will have a big impact here.

Just a bunch of thoughts from someone who has never done any professional logging! Still useful, though, as a representation of what data or sales pitches an educated consumer might find compelling. 🙂

[Carl Russell]

@Countymouse 38316 wrote:

…… Clearly, the industry fears this sort of simple “one of these things is not like the others” comparisons. Perhaps this the the greatest “bang for you buck,” but I am not sure as there will inevitably be differences between all groups. …..

I have always hard time with Organic farming that does not employ animal power to reduce the environmental affects of petroleum use.

I think draft animals are a significant aspect of what makes Draftwood “different” from the others. How we quantify, or qualify, that is going to be the secret to successful marketing.

Carl

[Carl Russell]

@Tim Harrigan 38297 wrote:

Yes, I was just wondering to what extend a management plan with inventory and valuation became part of property assessment.

Currently this is just a personal value, and we have not made much ground in helping folks to find a way to add this value to the resale of their land. The reality of the real estate market is that land with the timber cut off of it is equal in value to a property with significant timber resources. Even if some one was going to get a premium for enhanced timberland, the next owner may very well see that as a reason to capture that value in a harvest.

One mechanism to use is the Conservation Easement……. but that may narrow the resale market, making the land even more expensive even without the development assessment…..

The best solution is to develop a stewardship ethic…… Maybe that is what we are a part of here….:rolleyes:

Carl

[near horse]

Any of you in the NE familiar wih Lyme Timber Co in NH? I just read an article that mentioned them as a private company that “acquires quality habitat … gives up development rights by selling conservation easements then logs the land in a sustainable way”. “Harvesting methods are 3rd party certified by the Forestry Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative”.

Are these certifying agencies considered reputable or are they extensions of the standard conventional forestry community?

[Carl Russell]

The Lyme Timber Company LP is a private timberland investment management organization (TIMO) that focuses on the acquisition and sustainable management of lands with unique conservation values. Since its founding in 1976, the Company has followed a disciplined and value oriented approach to investing in forestland and rural real estate throughout the US. The Company’s current portfolio includes 475,000 acres of forestland located in New York, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Maine, Massachusetts, Tennessee, Virginia, Delaware, and Louisiana.

This is a perfect example of the conventional system. The primary focus here is creating a portfolio product that is attractive to investors. Part of that is a certain financial return. Another part is the “Greenwashing”, which supported by FSC and SFI allows for many conventional impacts that can be justified based on the available common technology, and the assumptions that have been laid out before in this thread.

On the ground these methods have some improved results over slash and burn, but the certification adds costs which are ultimately made up again through economy of scale, and the utilization of landscape-scale application of standardized silvicultural prescriptions, which are based on maximizing tree growth for economic gain, not necessarily ecological integrity. In these scenarios, a little dab-‘ll-do-ya. A few more waterbars, some buffer zones, an easement or two, and voila “You’re sustainable”…..

Carl

[Scott G]

If you were to really drill down you would probably discover, not surprisingly, that the CE aspect is an integral part of their revenue stream. Good chance that their CE tax credits have/will be sold off to a very close affiliate, or subsidiary with enough of a veil, to limit tax liability. Smart, albeit slimy, business move… These days, large corporate forestry is more about managing real estate assets than timber. If you were to thoroughly review the conditions of the typical CE for these types of properties they usually don’t eliminate all development. An example would be rather than a cabin on every 40 acres, you would have a cluster of 10 cabins on 100 acres with 300 acres of ‘green space’ that is collectively owned by the 10 cabin owners. Which scenario is more valuable? It is probably a wash and the developer still gets to develop large tracts, realize a phenomenal long term return on investment, and cash in on the tax credit from the CE which can be sold just like a commodity. BTW, you are still permitted to ‘wack it & grow it back’. CEs’ are great tools in the right application but unfortunately, like many well founded resource management ideas, when big money gets involved it all goes to hell in a handbasket.

[Mark Cowdrey]

“CE”‘s?
Thanks,
Mark

[Carl Russell]

@Mark Cowdrey 38708 wrote:

“CE”‘s?
Thanks,
Mark

Conservation Easements….

Carl

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