Green Horizons

NEW YORK - There is a crisis growing in America’s vast forest lands, but it has little to do with the health of the woods: the acreage is essentially the same as it was a century ago, and there is over 30 percent more wood volume per acre than in 1952.

At stake are large tracts of private forest that are at risk of falling into mismanagement, subdivision, or being sold for development.

"It’s a ticking time bomb," said Brett Butler, a research forester with the U.S. Forest Service Family Forest Research Center in Amherst, Massachusetts. He says the situation could jeopardize things like the wood used to build homes as well as jobs, clean water and fresh air.

Nearly 60 percent of America’s forests are privately owned, the majority by families and individuals, and most of these owners are 55 or older. A huge amount of forest land is about to change hands as aging landowners pass the land heirs or buyers.

"Without a doubt, it is the largest intergenerational transfer of forest land in our nation’s history," said Al Sample, president of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, a nonprofit environmental policy research organization, "and we are not ready for it."

Already, he said, forest land is rapidly disappearing. "We’re losing four acres a minute," or 1.6 hectares per minute, he said.

The institute, in cooperation with the Forest Service, recently completed a survey of the next generation of family forest owners. It found that heirs who will inherit the land are often professionals living far away in cities, have weak bonds to the land, and have little involvement in management of family forests.

High taxes were a top reason heirs cited as deterrents to keeping the land.

"The first time Wal-Mart or a developer makes an offer, they are going to take it," Sample said. "They often feel that they have no choice."

Steve Presley remembers spending time growing up on land his father owned in Palestine in East Texas: watching the sun go down, listening to the crickets, frogs, and coyotes, and picking blackberries with his high school sweetheart. (The bushes are still there, and the girl is now his wife of some 30 years.)

But Presley, who now owns the land, worries that high inheritance and property taxes may prevent future generations from experiencing similar pleasures.

"My children are faced with selling part of the property to pay for taxes," he said.

Subdividing the land is a major obstacle to practicing responsible forestry, said Edward Steigerwaldt, president of the Association of Consulting Foresters. Parcels must be a certain size to harvest economically and to sustain water quality and wildlife habitats.

Presley harvests much of his 750 acres, but he said that increased regulations and negative public opinion make tree farming difficult.

In recent years, landowners have been criticized for cutting down trees.

"Trees are absolutely the best way to take carbon out of the atmosphere," Presley said. "What environmentalists don’t understand is that as trees get really, really big, the growth rate goes down. Slow growth results in less carbon absorption."

Harvesting mature trees and replanting younger, faster growing trees "helps the small forest owner and the environment."

Laurence Wiseman, president and chief executive of the American Forest Foundation, a nonprofit conservation organization, said private forest owners played a critical role in protecting water and air quality and habitats for rare and endangered animals.

"They preserve the environment, but don’t get credit for it," he said.

"Seventy percent of the eastern watershed flows through family forests - all outside of public view," he said. "It’s a paradox. The public enjoys the benefits but doesn’t help pay any costs."