A unit of Lasting Forests
evolving since March 30, 1999
 
  

A Total Forest Management Plan
and Wildland Management
Decision Support System

 		 
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The Forest Group: Expanding the Concept

Rural System contains a proposed unit known as the Forest Group. This unit of the enterprise engages in diverse activities often difficult to separate from the work of the other units of Rural System. These include:

The Forests (temporarily called pivotal tracts) are regional. Forests are managed for owners but because they are viewed from a regional perspective, advantages may be gained in pooled buying and selling, in SmartWood certification benefits, in arranging export offers, and in reducing logging and transportation costs, in sharing equipment, and in avoiding duplicating effort. Owners of land may enroll all or parts of their ownerships.

The concept is complex but contains elements of:

  1. Voluntary membership
  2. Partial or total ownership
  3. No risk of financial loss
  4. Improved forests of the region (higher quality, potentially more profitable standing stock throughout the region)
  5. Site-specific, silvic-intensive, GIS-based tree and forest-stand information
  6. Potentially profit maximizing, but always based on the land owners objectives which may not include profit as an important objective. (Objectives include a set, usually defining a condition for inheritance, family pride and recreation, wildlife conservation (plants and animals), spring flowers, a place for reflection and psychological health (to "get away"), and a genuine contribution as a good citizen to the well being of the region through water supplies, air quality, scenic beauty, educational opportunities, and wildlife benefits).
  7. A regional view that may (but not necessarily) provide economies (scale effects) A preparation for future fossil energy shortages or non-availability
  8. An increase in healthful local employment
  9. Sophisticated, high-tech management, including several levels of simulation and optimization
  10. Employment of high school, university, and graduate students to assist students and their parents and guardians in paying for their education at Virginia Tech
  11. Use of past research findings based on public tax investments in research over the past century
  12. Use of actual field results in future analyses and research
  13. Some funds used to support future research
  14. Lasting Forests is staffed by superior graduates of the College of Natural Resources who are personally committed to continuing their education and who work with other divisions of Rural System
  15. Independent of state and federal funds
  16. Committed to perpetuating and improving Rural System
  17. The actual income is supplied by funds derived from managing the land:
  18. After an analysis, membership is agreed upon based on the ability of Forests to pay the local taxes on the land for the owner. The owners agrees to provide Rural System 80% of the additional net income from the above ( the more money made, the more both benefit - all subject to #17 above.) In this way, assertion #3 is maintained. At least the taxes are paid. (Many land holdings are a net drain on owners.)
  19. Forests are patrolled and protected.
  20. Forests are protected by all means of the System (testimony and other means) from intrusions (e.g., powerline corridors, highways). Of course, "winning" cannot be assured and an owner may elect to be included or not in such protective action (e.g., rejection when there is a desire to sell under land condemnation).
  21. Wilderness, park, reserve, and sanctuary areas may be selected and special provisions provided for their long term protection. Large areas with research and educational events (e.g., U.S. Forest Service areas and the Mountain Lake Wilderness Conservancy) may be available to members of the Rural System.
  22. Memberships in "The Foresters" with various levels and including awards for knowledge, practices, and special activity are an important component.

(See also other Forest Group details.)

There are about 2.7 million acres in the region of primary interest of Rural System. Of this, about 70% is forested. Of this area, figures differ on access and whether the trees can be (or should be) harvested. There are 450 thousand acres of state and federal land in the region which for now will be assumed to be under appropriate management. (Perhaps Rural Systemcan contract with them to do cost-effective management for the average public landowner-taxpayer. That will be studied and answered later.) There are 80 thousand acres of forest industry land. The summation is that there are at least 800,000 acres of privately-owned-potentially-productive-of-wood (P30W) land in the region. Virtually all private forest, 1.2 million acres, may be the working domain of Rural System.

A modest target of half of this ownership (500,000 acres) being brought under sophisticated, profitable, citizen-satisfying modern forestry is that seen for Rural System.

Wood (tree-size) growth in the region now exceeds harvest by a ratio of 17 to 10. Harvests can be increased, but the concerns are that quality growth is not occurring - on superior trees - on productive sites -- where access costs are reasonable and where other environmental impacts (erosion, compaction, etc.) are not extreme. The problem is complex in the region, even more so for the small acreage landowner. Rural System has the means to solve these problems for the small unit and large unit land owner. The staff of the division can take the hassle out of problems for the out-of-state absentee, or other owners that are busy with daily affairs and unaware of the complexity of forest-related decisions. It does what the owners wants, not simply cut trees for immediate income. It can assist in financial planning for college and other needs, even financial crisis management (forest banking) to prevent disastrous land impacts.

It can present a viable alternative to the rapid turnover in ownership of forest land (every 12 years) by providing management, a flow of benefits, and reduce the harmful effects of a "cut-and-get" before land sale.

Forestry is viewed as a total system and includes management of that total system to include reforestation and regeneration, protection, enhancing work that is cost effective, inventory, harvests, transportation, marketing, processing, storage, preservation and other action adding value in the region, developing exports as appropriate, making genetic improvement, monitoring, and doing profit-making research into all of the above.

Rural System is seeking to grow as an organization so its positive influences can be felt throughout the Region. It seeks to accept responsibility for management of lands in the region made as gifts to the Virginia Tech Foundation. These become showplaces of management of the students of the College of Natural Resources at Virginia Tech. These special places are living, working, profitable demonstration and research areas, self-sustaining, honoring the name of the donor, participating in the goals of the college and providing employment opportunities for students as well as local people. As one component of the Rural System operation there is the large-area maintenance work. It includes allowing a corporation or family to hold land for pride, estate values, speculative price increases, or any reason by applying the composite strategy of engaging in a contract:

  1. To bring the land under sophisticated management
  2. To gain full stocking of superior trees
  3. To develop a harvest strategy that pays for taxes and improves the stand
  4. To diversity products
  5. To increase security and protection
  6. To participate with other ownerships in
  7. To gain profits from additional recreational opportunities and higher recreational quality

Minckler (1980, Journal of Forestry 78(2):192, 241) wrote of his vision of forestry and was in that year clearly concerned about the public perception of forestry and foresters. His concerns have not diminished (pers. correspondence, 1993). The staff of Rural System share much of his vision. Part of the foundation of Rural System includes his vision but, in all, has the following elements:

  1. Land is what is managed.
  2. Because land has trees allows it to be put by some people into one category of use. That use can rapidly change even though everyone is aware that forests take many years to develop.
  3. Trees are part of a forest system that includes owners, surrounding land, water, location, taxes, markets, roads, the legal and economic environment, risks of loss, tax policy, current consumer preference, wildlife damage, game preference and hunting attitude, and tendencies toward outdoor recreation. It includes current wood use technology, regional wood prices, warehouse and stock-pile capability, and modern saw-mill techniques. Of course it includes energy-availability and biomass-energy demand.
  4. To emphasize trees in such a system is akin to spending too much time in discussing "the lung" when the topic is the human body!
  5. Every piece of land is unique. Computer technology allows that concept to be useful. Now characteristics of every site can be used to determine what trees grow best on what sites, but equally important in the larger system what species, at what age, in what arrangement, on what site, suffering what expected losses and costs, at what distance from a road and mill, given today's and technology and expected received funds, can be profitable.
  6. Asking the question of profit is not a bad idea. Whether profit from trees (or other products) is used or not in the market, it can inform the rational land "owner" (public or private) about the dollars likely to be foregone if alternative uses of the land are made.
  7. Annual financial equivalent returns to owners from land with trees should be accumulated as part of the rotation-length budget (recreation, views, game, etc.)
  8. Regional values of land with trees (pure water, flood cost prevention, temperature influence, visual amenities, erosion control) should be computed, then a median estimate used to compute an annual value of forests to each citizen. Social value of forests are real, and can be computed, but not well at the stand or ownership scale.
  9. As in other systems, efficiency in one place may not achieve the objectives of the system owners/operators. Not efficiency but achieving cost effectiveness of the total system is the mission. Of whom? Of what? It is hard to imagine the average C-grade graduate of current forestry schools as being able to be responsible for the total system. The net has been thrown to far; the catch is too great. Some still see the forester as the manager of the total system or the generalist who can manage some part, or the specialist who can plant, raise, and specify when to cut trees (not cut them, for that is the role of the specialist logger). These three identities capture the ambiguity within the "field of forestry", among people calling themselves foresters, and certainly among the public.
  10. The vision within Rural System is that of land used to meet landowners' many (100+) objectives. Rural System staff assists in formulating these objectives, informs the owner of the costs; provides necessary and appropriate legal, ecological and other constraints, provides a prescription and plan, and helps implement the total system over the long run.
  11. The "profession" of forestry once narrow and clear, is now so broad and multi-dimensional that it cannot be communicated well within or outside the university or agency. (See Journal of Forestry, January 1995 issue). The essence (Minckler 1980) can no longer be captured without diminishing or apparently ignoring a valued component of the system.
  12. Within Rural System there are people who have special knowledge of trees or some aspect of the total tree-related system. They may call themselves foresters, at some risk in some circles. The emphasis within Rural Systemis on the total system working for the land owner, bringing his or her land to full production of their specified benefits (and more where feasible) at reasonably low costs.
  13. A concept of intergenerational justice is present, assuming some degree of thankfulness for the resource inherited and now available for use and management, and intent on providing resources for survival in the future and productive potential of opportunities and options.
  14. Few, if any, well-educated foresters can master the total system. Certainly few members of the general public without the privilege of such education can do so. Rural System employees work as a group. They seek to "do forestry" for landowners. They will satisfy all aspects of their curiosity and encourage learning of all types but "to educate landowners about good forestry" is impossible. TheRural System's vision is one of land under intensive contractual care (perhaps (but only partially) analogous to a lawncare company, a frozen-food delivery service, or a furnace maintenance company).

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