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What makes a Forester A Forester?

Started by Jeff, January 11, 2005, 01:17:29 PM

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Phorester


Remember that taxpayers in a particular State pay Federal taxes, too.  So if their State gets Federal money for whatever purpose, those citizens are getting back some of the money they paid in to their Federal taxes.

Ron Wenrich

When I started out, the state had service foresters that went out and worked with landowners.  They really didn't take that much business away from the consultants, since they didn't put private timber out on bids.

But, that changed when the consultants started to complain about state foresters supposedly taking away work.  The state stopped providing service.  

But, that wasn't good enough.  The consultants wanted the state to give their names out to the landowners.  In essence, the state became a work finder for the consultants.  Seems like that is a type of subsidy.

Then the procurement foresters wanted to be put on the list.  Consultants complained for fear of eliminating the middle man.  In the end, anyone who had a BS in forestry could get their name on the list.  It was a very long list, and very confusing.  It still seems like an industry subsidy.

In the process, the landowner has been forgotten.  Landowners became confused with the list and ended up doing nothing.  Consultants and procurement foresters didn't really get all that much business.  Service foresters were phased out.

The nice thing about service foresters is that they had no economic interest in the outcome of any timber sales or recommended work.  I've seen a lot of work done by business that is no more than high grade operations.  Business economics supercede forest management.  No one reviews the forester's work or recommendations.  Is the landowner better served?  

Our society keeps on breaking down to where we are scared that the guy across the street is going to get more then we get.  We've become a bunch of individuals living in the same place, and community no longer exists.
Never under estimate the power of stupid people in large groups.

jrdwyer

There has, and will always be, the need for state foresters to educate landowners, or school children, or citizens about their forest resource and the best ways to manage it. Educational services have always been part of the public domain. No argument there.

Historically, there has been a shortage of consulting foresters available to assist the private landowner. But times change. Today, in most states, there are an ample number of private consultants to assist landowners from 10 acres to 10,000 acres. Thus, the need for state foresters to provide all and every service to a forest landowner is outdated.

So what we are talking about is the scope of public forestry versus private forestry.  In the arena of assisting landowners with timber sales (marking, measuring, appraising, soliciting bids, helping to write contracts, enforcing contracts, etc.) the private independent consulting forester provides a superior service to the public forester.

As an example, I recently helped a landowner in KY who used the states' subsidized forestry marking service and did everything they said and got 0 bids on the marked timber. So in the end he called me and I found a buyer and helped him write a good contract and he got paid and was very happy. Unfortunately, the state of KY wasted a lot of time, money, and effort for nothing.

In Indiana, the DNR provides both a consulting forester list to landowners and a directory of professional loggers. So the landowner can choose whoever they want.

Finally, I have assisted landowners with timber sales in IL who were shocked that the state imposed a 4% timber sale tax.  In the end it just reduces their stumpage prices by 4%. So not every landowner in IL agrees with that tax.

Buzz-sawyer

I dont like the tax....and especially dont like explaining it to land owners, and particularly dont enjoy being forced to administer it and do the paper work.
    HEAR THAT BLADE SING!

ppine

Foresters have become much harder to find these days.  I think they are going to be making a huge come
back. 
I am tired of running into people with degrees in Environmental Science and other generalist 5!@#%^&*. 

Universities are expanding their programs but it may be too late. 
I lot of what we learned 50 years ago is buried in the basements of libraries.  I keep hearing studies that sound like it is all brand new.  A lot of the old research has never made it to the internet.  We know how to manage forests.  Just get the lawsuits and environmental compliance requirements out of the way. 
Forester

peakbagger

In the Northeast most large landowners have sold conservations rights to their lands. Usually they get money up front not to chop up the land into development lots and agree to use sustainable forestry that is inspected by third parties that are going to include foresters. I also think a lot of the forest carbon programs has the same need for foresters. Its a different sort of forestry but the folks doing it still need the fundamentals and certifications. 

beenthere

ppine
You have it right. 50 years ago the 'ists (ecologists, zoologists, geologists, etc., etc.) were graduating and being hired within the USFS with the ideology that clearcutting trees was "WRONG" and it fit right in with the activists ranting about clear-cut lands managed by the USFS, states, and BLM. The trained Foresters with their degrees and knowledge were then forced out as having no expertise or reason to be respected. That is putting it way too simple but in general that is my understanding of the problem. 
The effect snowballed into the problems we have now. Recovery, as ppine says, is trying to pick up with the sad state of affairs in the Forestry education field and in finding the experienced instructors and professors who have now long-been retired. 
Has been very sad to see this happen since the 60's. 
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

ppine

There can be no doubt that logging fizzled after the spotted owl mess in the early 1990s. Environmental groups figured out how to stop timber sales in court by filing lawsuits.  The NEPA process became very slow partly because the USFS has been arbitrary in the interpretation of it.   A lot of foresters kind of gave up.  Many retired.  But I don't think the agency was overwhelmed by liberal people with other interests.  I blame lawsuits and the environmental review process. 
Forester

SwampDonkey

The Irvings are always telling us they are looking for foresters. The fact of the matter, even in the days of 250 graduates from UNB, they hired very few, maybe 2 a year. Most went elsewhere. How long do they think a forester is going to wait around for a job with 100's of others after it to? Fact is, the Irvings and most mill owners hire forest technicians, not many foresters at all. A forest technician graduate has only been in school one year. He/she gets special status in the fact he/she can draw EI while in school, while a forester is denied. That is actually enshrined by the CRA with the Forest Technician college. That goes back for years in the past, since the 50's at least. I can tell you though, any attempt to go against the status quo in the college and you'll be ejected. That means anyone going against how forestry has been traditionally practised in NB. You make waves, might as well say good bye. There has been one instructor there in recent years who tried and he didn't fare well. Even DNR ousted him before he became an instructor.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

ppine

An education and some experience. 
Foresters understand how a tree population behaves.  Horticulturists, arborists and some other ists can never be foresters because they only understand one tree at a time. 
Forester

Ron Scott

Yes, foresters are professionals in the knowledge and practice of Silviculture where many of the "ologists" have no knowledge of it. They must depend on the services of a forester to practice integrated resource management.

The USFS hired mostly foresters up until the Monongahela Controversy in 1974 and enactment of the National Forest Management Act of 1976. Those with a forestry degree were the "best bang for the buck" at the time for applying multiple Use and forest commodity outputs. 

Timber management was a primary focus at the time.
~Ron

Ron Scott

Earning a Forestry Degree: What to Know
U.S. News & World Report, March 6, 2023
Though forestry programs have evolved and spread across colleges nationwide – especially at land-grant institutions – many prospective and current college students remain unaware of this major, experts say.
The E-Forester
~Ron

Autocar

I have always felt that a forester should be a logger in the beginning because all the state foresters I have dealt with want to mark to much junk trees and a few good trees making it hard to make a living. And a few keeping the better trees so when they retire they become a consultant and get paid a percentage of the job. Probably my most unfavorable subject foresters ! Just my two cents. And here in Ohio the forester wants to cut most of the den trees and the game warden wants to keep more of them and they never set down and talk about what's the best of both worlds.
Bill

barbender

 In my opinion, a "real" forester also understands the realities of what it takes for loggers to get wood to the mill, and without any loggers they can't accomplish their management goals.

 I say this because we'll get some new guys, fresh out of college that can be a real pain to work with. They'll put up sales that don't have enough timber of any value for any loggers to bid on, and they can't figure out why. The sales loggers do buy, these foresters seem to make it a mission to keep the logger from making any money. 

 Most come around after a few years. Others never do, and agencies have whole areas where they get zero bids for timber because no one will work with the forester. 

 I was cutting a tract this month that a fairly new forester put up. These young guys have drank the global warming Kool-aid pretty heavily and are doing some really stupid stuff (imo) because of it. Leaving a 40 acre tract of 60-70 year old Balmy, Balsam Fir standing because it's "old growth" and sequestering carbon. Other tracts, cutting all of the aspen, leaving the birch and balsam. In both of those cases, most of that wood will be dead in 20 years. If there were sound management reasons for leaving it standing, fine. But sometimes I think it is nothing but virtue signaling. 
Too many irons in the fire

doc henderson

wood put in a house, continues to sequester carbon, unless the house burns down.  even then it is net zero.
Timber king 2000, 277c track loader, PJ 32 foot gooseneck, 1976 F700 state dump truck, JD 850 tractor.  2007 Chevy 3500HD dually, home built log splitter 18 horse 28 gpm with 5 inch cylinder and 32 inch split range with conveyor powered by a 12 volt tarp motor

barbender

 Yep I didn't say they made sense, Doc. Just what we are dealing with out on the ground. Some of this stupidity is somewhat humorous when read about in headlines, not so much when real people come out and start screwing up your day to day with this foolishness.

 If he was that concerned about global warming, he could've came out to the job once to paint the one boundary line needed, and put up a ticket box. I saw him up there at least 5 days, and this job is 70 miles from the office🤦 There always seems to be a major mental disconnect with these people.
Too many irons in the fire

doc henderson

Timber king 2000, 277c track loader, PJ 32 foot gooseneck, 1976 F700 state dump truck, JD 850 tractor.  2007 Chevy 3500HD dually, home built log splitter 18 horse 28 gpm with 5 inch cylinder and 32 inch split range with conveyor powered by a 12 volt tarp motor

SwampDonkey

Don't forget that most all field staff looking after such jobs are technicians and very few foresters. I get to see them every so often on our thinning blocks, they aren't foresters. Over the years I hear from a logger now and again, 'my forester so and so....', when I know the guy and he's not a forester.

There is going to be a few guys who never got educated well in the local ecology they end up working in with regards to stand dynamics when there are interventions, man made or natural. What we get to cut now is the results of someone elses' job before. So if we keep taking the best because we can't make money, we might as well let it fall down I guess. We cut a mountain of low grade up here, rolls by here non stop, mostly due to the site and a lot that was never thinned out in time, and then because the time between renewel has shifted from 80-100 years to 30 or 40. In the north, a 40 year old hardwood isn't very big. Aspen and fir can be good sized on a  good site, but they aren't money trees, they yield more volume per hr during harvest, less handling to get the same amount of wood.
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

beenthere

Agree what barbender says, and another example back in the day (90's) when the rage was all about the Pacific yew trees yielding taxol. The demand for the Pacific yew to be harvested from the set-aside acres of old growth forests was upsetting the minds of the Sierra Club type. 
Long story short, was on a forest in Oregon to assist with plans to harvest Pacific yew. While there, a USFS employee (not sure which 'ologist she was) was giving a short tour of the harvesting plans where some "old growth" 30+ diameter Doug fir trees would be harvested along with the Pacific yew. The diameters were small to large in a bell-shaped curve. Were told which trees could be harvested, and which perfectly good trees would have to be cut down and left laying on the ground to rot "for the ecosystem" to remain perfect. Trying to satisfy everyone. 
Most interesting was the response from a couple ladies in this group from California who put up a big stink about "wasting" those perfectly good trees. Had a good laugh about how that stung under their skin. 
south central Wisconsin
It may be that my sole purpose in life is simply to serve as a warning to others

SwampDonkey

I remember the yew craze. They looked at Canada yew in this region. Not many were interested in harvesting it because the harvestor was usually the land owner and they wasn't going to get much $$ to bother with. I think you could make more money picking fiddleheads by the lb and less work. And you could sell them like strawberries as fast as you can pick'm. :D
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

Peter Drouin

The only time I would need one is to go and figure out the BF I have in R Oak-Pine-Hemlock or whatever on the land. 16" DBH and up.
Is what I tell customers when they ask me what I think about cutting.
Mark your main road into the land, let the logger do the short roads off that. And leave all the slash, cut up to be no more than 4' tall, less is better.
I have Foresters here, All they think about is the $$ they will make.
I do have some good ones too.
Like any trade, you have the good, bad, and ugly. ;)   
A&P saw Mill LLC.
45' of Wood Mizer, cutting since 1987.
License NH softwood grader.

SwampDonkey

Since a lot of old forestry schools now do not have undergraduate degrees this is all it takes now to be an RPF, a 16 month Masters Degree in Forest Conservation.

Peter Kuitenbrouwer - School of Journalism - Toronto Metropolitan University

https://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/programs/forest-conservation
"No amount of belief makes something a fact." James Randi

1 Thessalonians 5:21

2020 Polaris Ranger 570 to forward firewood, Husqvarna 555 XT Pro, Stihl FS560 clearing saw and continuously thinning my ground, on the side. Grow them trees. (((o)))

240b

if you look at the nh state license application under qualifications of applicants.
 its possible to obtain a license without any degree. 
  The state of Vt grandfathered a bunch of people (without forest degrees)who had been writing plans when they enacted licensure a few years ago.  
   

Ron Scott

The Little-Known Field that Protects the Environment and Pays Well
Rayonier, July 26, 2023
A forestry major offers a wide range of high-demand job opportunities in a field that plays an important role in carbon sequestration, protecting threatened and endangered species, and improving air and water quality.  Read More
The E-forester
~Ron

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