Very Green Ecologically Friendly Logging

[Plowboy]

I heard on the radio today that the nature conservancy is selling several large tracts of land in the Adirondacks to qualified buyers with strict conditions. They must maintain Biological surveys and records and manage the forests. To Manage the forests they must use Very Green Ecologically Friendly Logging. The way I understand it means Animal Powered logging but I am involved in the draft world. To anyone else it is just news in one ear and out the other. Using complicated terms doesn’t really help the cause. Although it may open up a venue for a northern N.Y. logger to get a job managing thousands of acres of land. I don’t have the details just a news brief that caught my ear.

[Carl Russell]

Plowboy, great to see you again!!
I know terms like that drive me nuts, they don’t educate any body, just warm and fuzzy. Green in a true sense means nothing, it’s just a modern marketing term that is intended to lead people to their own conclusions so that they FEEL good about it. And Friendly?? Where are the standards in that?

I think the only cause they are trying to advance is their own. Finding funders. Make people feel good about giving money to support their efforts.

Thanks for the heads up. Carl

[Gabe Ayers]

Hey Dennis Plowboy,

This is interesting. I agree with Carl, TNC is usually good at the green spin, as the largest environmental group in the world (read also richest), they have an opportunity to do some things differently and we have encouraged them over the years as a consulting forester and collaborator on several of their strategies.

They had an idea several years ago to create what was called a “Sustainable Forestry Bank”. This idea was for a landowner to deed the forest management rights under a conservation easement to TNC and they would in turn manage the forest in a sustainable way and pay a yearly dividend to the landowner. This is a complex proposal, but definitely has merit. There are many challenges to this approach and we worked together to refine the proposal.

As any experienced forest manager knows, there are all sorts of conditions throughout forested conditions everywhere, so how you pay a dividend could be all over the scale. The idea hasn’t ripened to date, to my knowledge. When it was first presented in the Appalachian region it included the implication that it would be “horse logging”, which has a warm fuzzy image to most people. I had been getting some publicity for my logging in the National Forest at the time and it was a convenient wagon to jump on for gaining public support.

The problems started when they hired a rather conventional forester that had never seen modern animal powered forestry and doubted the abilities of this culture and technique. He baited people in with horse logging and then tried to talk them into “small machines” to do the work and the general reaction was rejection. When they abandoned the overall bottom up change approach promoted by HHFF we withdrew and continued our work in our own communities and I am not aware of the status of that approach is today.

I will refer this information to Jimmy Brown, Chad Vogel and Troy Firth. Each has connections in the Adirondacks and may be interested in this idea.

Thanks for staying in touch with this board Plowboy.

More later,

[Gabe Ayers]

Plowboy,

I have referred this opportunity to Guy Hunkle the forester for Troy Firth of
Firth Maple Products. They are contacting the NY Nature Conservancy Folks about this potential. Thanks for posting and networking in our community of interest.

Troy Firth operates several TIMO’s. This acronym stands for Timber Investment Management Organization. This is a new development in “green investing” and Troy and his crew do a great job in the woods. Ira King, one of the posters here is a member of that highly skilled crew.

This is a proven example of the usefulness of this site and our participation.

Thanks,

[Ira]

Besides the TIMO’s Troy has turned some property into a Family Foundation.This way it remains as forest land in perpetuity.
As Jason said ,I am one of the crew and as such I don’t get involved in the business management so I don’t have many answers about the TIMO’s or the foundation. If any one is interested I can give you Guy Dunkles contact info.

[Plowboy]

Jason,
I hope someone gets something positive out of it. If their conditions aren’t too constrictive to the folks actually doing the work it may be a good opportunity for some. The sizes of the tracts would probably keep several animal powered loggers busy perpetually.

[dominiquer60]

This makes no mention of “very green earth friendly techniques”
it sounds like they are going to kick out some hunters and let the former owners log some more.

Conservation group bought land last year to keep it protected
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
By Kathy Bowen (Contact)
Gazette Reporter

ADIRONDACKS — The Nature Conservancy is prepared to sell more than half the 161,000 acres of land it acquired from a Glens Falls paper manufacturer last year, raising concerns among sportsmen and local politicians.

Conservancy spokeswoman Connie Prickett said Tuesday that five large parcels of land in six counties and 27 towns from Greenfield to Newcomb are included in the properties offered.

In February, the state announced it had agreed to buy 57,699 acres of the timberland as well as conservation easements on another 73,627 acres in the central Adirondacks from the Nature Conservancy.

The Conservancy, in an effort to protect wildlife and habitat, had purchased the 161,000 acres that were owned for decades by Finch, Pruyn & Co. The $110 million purchase last summer was done with borrowed money, including $25 million from the Open Space Institute.

The land for sale is offered by LandVest, a Boston real estate consulting and sales firm that specializes in large-scale development and timber properties.

The company’s Web site, LandVest.com, lists the conservancy’s land as follows:

“The properties are being offered by Sealed Bid in 5 Sale Blocks ranging from 1,691 acres to 58,502 acres, thereby providing a broad range of investment price points, and diverse timber portfolios. The land is being sold subject to a Fiber Supply Agreement and a Working Forest Conservation Easement.”

The fiber supply agreement is a 20-year deal allowing what is now Finch Paper to take a designated volume of trees from its former land. The conservancy and state are writing the easement agreement that would prohibit development of the lands that are being sold.

Prickett said the conservancy’s mission is to protect the forests and its wild inhabitants, and it has worked to ensure the land being offered will be protected.

But local government leaders in the Adirondack Park say they have many concerns about how they will be affected by the sale of the land, especially 57,000 acres proposed for sale to New York state and destined to be designated forever wild.

Chester town Supervisor Fred Monroe is an officer of the Adirondack Association of Towns and Villages and a life resident of the Adirondacks.

He said he appreciates that most of the land being offered for sale would continue to be logged, but land designed as forever wild prohibits any permanent evidence of humans.

“Our first concern is for the loggers and the mill workers. The timber operations have been going on for 150 years and that would continue [under the sale proposals],” he said.

But, more than 57,000 acres are proposed to be included in the state’s forever wild program that would close roads and require the removal of fishing and hunting camps.

Monroe said although the state currently pays taxes on forever wild lands, there is no guarantee that will always be the case.

“It creates a huge tax insecurity for towns. The payment of taxes is not guaranteed for the future and there are some towns that couldn’t survive with a loss of revenue that big,” he said.

The state owns nearly 50 percent of the land in the town of Long Lake, Hamilton County, and Monroe said it and other communities with small private taxpayer bases would be devastated by a loss of government property tax money.

There’s more than financial stability on the line for residents in the Adirondack Park. Many families have built camps in the forests and along waterways on land that was leased for generations from the paper company.

Monroe said his family owns four such hunting camps around Newcomb and those properties could be lost.

“The state designated land near Saranac Lake [forever wild] and if the owners didn’t destroy the camps, the state went in and destroyed them,” Monroe said. “The state will close the roads and cut access to the elderly and the disabled, including my 88-year-old father who has hunted and fished in the area for decades.”

Monroe said there are two small pieces of land in Chester that have been included on the list that the state is interested in acquiring from the conservancy.

He said he doesn’t have a problem with those properties being designated forever wild because they are remote.

Prickett said efforts are being made to help hunting and fishing clubs relocate to other areas in the Adirondack Park if their camps are shut down by the state.

“We’re in the process of working with the state on a 10-year transition period so they would not have to vacate immediately,” she said. “There are some clubs that are struggling for membership and we’re trying to hook up those clubs with the ones that would be closed.”

She said normally, lease holders sign annual contracts for use of the land, but this fall, three-year deals are being offered in the areas outside the proposed acres that could be designated forever wild. She said the lease agreements would be transferred to the new owners, giving clubs and individuals until 2011 to negotiate new deals.

Prickett said over the past 14 months, scientists have been evaluating the 161,000 acres acquired from Finch Paper of Glens Falls.

The land, about 250 square miles of terrain, has been researched by foot and through technology including Geographic Information Systems, commonly referred to as GIS.

“Using a combination of GIS modeling and field work, they’ve not only documented the natural composition of the property, but also evaluated its quality. The information they are collecting feeds directly into our protection plan,” Prickett said.

Although the conservancy expects to recoup much of the $110 million that was paid to Finch Paper, LLC, Prickett said it is expected the land deal will cost about $35 million for the nonprofit organization.

“There have been a lot of survey and research costs as well as appraisals and management costs,” she said. “We have a three-year goal to raise $35 million and private fundraising is going really well.”

I am not sure that these northern loggers are needed after all.
-Erika

[dominiquer60]

Don’t get me wrong, I am sure that northern loggers are needed and should be used to manage these forest lands. I am not sure that TNC, Finch & Pryn, or the new owners of the land for sale will be interested in utilizing such sensible methods as restorative forestry, or even just animal powered extraction. I hope this deal does lead to teams in these forests, but I won’t hold my breath for corporate America to make the right choice.
Lets hope for the best,
Erika

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