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CAPITAL IDEAS -- LIVE!

January  2003 News Conference for Forest Owners
Sponsored by Alabama Forest Owners' Association, Inc.
Conference was recorded Wednesday, January 15, 2003.

CLICK HERE
to Listen to the
Conference.

This conference and all future conferences will be in the .mp3 format, which is compatible with Windows Media Player and most other media devices.

SCROLL DOWN FOR CONFERENCE GUEST INFORMATION

cilhayes.jpg (3561 bytes)

Hayes D. Brown

starting time: (00:00)

Moderator

Hayes D. Brown, attorney and forest owner,  will moderate this news conference. Hayes' email address is hbrown@hayesbrown.com.

Click Here to View & Hear Prior News Conferences.

.

Mitch Dubensky

(00:35)

"What Is A Wetland?" asks EPA

Mitch Dubensky is Director of Forest Environment for the American Forest & Paper Association in Washington D.C. Mitch and his peers in numerous forest products companies stay on top of proposed water-related regulations and help the regulators understand forestry operations so that unneeded regulations are avoided. "The Bush administration is planning to rewrite the U.S. Clean Water Act based on a court ruling that called into question how much of the nation's waters can be protected by the 30-year-old law." Birmingham News 1/10/03.

Mitch suggests that you assist the EPA in their quest for knowledge by first reading Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on the Clean Water Act Regulatory Definition of "Waters of the United States,” (pdf file) and then sending your written comments to Water Docket, Environmental Protection Agency, Mailcode 4101T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20460, Attention Docket ID No.OW-2002-0050.

More on the EPA rules changes:

Phone: (202) 463-2434
Email: mitch_dubensky@afandpa.org

.

Dan Byfield

(05:41)

LandGuard: Legal Protection From Regulations

Dan Byfield is president of the American Land Foundation. He has developed a new service designed to assist landowners who face any of the following problems:

  • A government order restricting water usage on your land
  • The discovery of an endangered species on your private property
  • Condemnation proceedings by a government agency
  • Zoning restrictions that kept you from building on your land

Click here to learn about LandGuard.

Byfield is also president of Liberty Matters, a biweekly news service that you will find useful.

Phone: 1-800-452-6389
Email: dbliberty@aol.com

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Dr. John L. Greene

(08:59)

Keep Timber & Land with Estate Plan

John Greene is a forest economist with the U.S. Forest Service and a leading national expert in the field of forest taxation. He reports on a study which asked forest owners who had recently been involved in the transfer of an estate whether "special use" valuation had been applied to the land or timber, whether estate tax was due, and if it was, what assets were used to pay it. The results of the study may not surprise you, but we hope they will motivate you to sit down with family members to prevent unnecessary loss of your property. To help you follow this discussion, we have posted John's program notes for your review. Click here to read.

Information for further study:

Phone: (919) 549-4093
Email: johnlgreene@fs.fed.us

.

Ted DeVos

(13:29)

Alabama Quail Trail

Ted DeVos is a forester and wildlife biologist with Regions Trust Department, based in Montgomery, Alabama. He is a director of the Alabama Wildlife Federation and a commissioner of the Alabama Forestry Commission. Ted manages wildlife habitat on numerous forest properties and has written many articles on quail management. He describes the new Alabama Quail Trail (click here) and how forest owners can get involved.

Quail & Wildlife Habitat:

Phone: (334) 230-6117
Email: wdevos@earthlink.net

.

Debbie Wilson

(16:42)

North Alabama Birding Trail

Debbie Wilson is director of the Florence/Lauderdale Tourism Office, which markets and promotes all types of tourism in Lauderdale County, located in Northwest Alabama. The Tourism Office will be participating in the North Alabama Birding Trail project. At this time Trail developers have no plans to include private forest owners in the project, but maybe you will figure out a way to make the project better through the use of your land.

General Factoids of Interest about Americans:

  • 54.1 million call themselves Birders
  • 57.8 million are recreational fishermen
  • 29.7 million are golfers

Alabama Coastal Birding Trail (developed by the Gulf Coast Convention & Visitors Bureau)

Demographics and Economic Impact of Birders on Dauphin Island, Alabama:

  • 10,000 birdwatchers visit Dauphin Island annually with financial impact of more that $4 million.
  • Average Age is 53.7: more that half are ages 46 – 65; less that 3% are under 30.
  • 22% earned more that $100,000 per year in family income; 33.1% earned $50,000 to $99,999; 8% earned less that $25,000.
  • 86 % attended college and 49% attended graduate school. Only 6.2% reported no college.
  • 55.9% are women and 44.1% are men. 

Fermata (click here) is the name of the consultant which developed the Alabama Coastal Birding Trail.

Phone: (256) 740-4141
Email: dwilson@flo-tour.org

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Dr. Jim Armstrong

(19:20)

Are Beavers Drowning Your Trees?

Jim Armstrong is a wildlife biologist at Auburn University specializing in wildlife damage management. Jim discusses the problems beavers cause for many forest owners and lists a host of web pages for you to gather further information (below). Click here for a list of Beaver Control Experts.

WEBSITES:

Phone: (334) 844-9233
Email: armstjb@auburn.edu
Web Page: http://www.auburn.edu/~armstjb/

.

Dr. Weihuan Xu

(24:07)

Timberland Decision Support System

Dr. Weihuan Xu is the Principal Economist of the Texas Forest Service. He specializes in forest economic and resource analysis and is the author of the web-based Timberland Decision Support System (TDSS) which we linked to in November, 2002 in the Financial Analysis segment. The TDSS is a web-based decision tool for helping forest landowners make sound timberland investment and management decisions. Dr. Xu invites you to try it out and contact him with any questions or comments.

Open the Timberland Investment Calculator (click here) and try these numbers:
Discount Rate: 5 percent
Rotation Age: 25 years
Annual Net Cash Flow Per Acre: - $10
Year  1 Activity (Establishment) with Cash Flow (cost) of: - $200
Year 25 Activity (Harvest) with Cash Flow (income) of:  +$3000
Press the SUBMIT button at the bottom of the calculator.
We got a Net Present Value of $589.26 and
an Internal Rate of Return of 10.8 percent.

Now start over. We changed ONLY the Annual Net Cash Flow Per Acre from -$10 to $0 (we leased our land to hunters for $10 per year) and then pressed the SUBMIT button and our "new" Net Present Value rose to $730.20 and our Internal Rate of Return jumped to 11.95 percent.

Dr. Xu has provided us with a great learning tool and we hope you'll use it often.

Phone: (979) 458-6650
Email: wxu@tfs.tamu.edu 

.

Carl E. Carlson, Jr.

(28:50)

Management Reminders & Stumpage Market Report

Eddie Carlson owns and operates Carlson Land Services, Inc., a consulting forestry firm based in Montgomery, Alabama. He helps many Alabama landowners sell their timber and provides them with forest management services, too. He recommends advance planning for activities such as tree planting and prescribed burning. And of course, we want to know his opinion of what the timber markets are like and what he believes they will be like in the near future.

Market Report Services:

Phone: (334) 270-1291
Email: ectree@aol.com 

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Issues and Topics AFOA is following.

To suggest an issue or a topic for a future news conference, please send an email note to AFOA by clicking here.

  • National or Federal Issues
  • EPA Proposed Water Quality Trading
  • Energy Bill
  • CCA Treated Southern Pine Lumber
  • TMDLs
  • EPA Basin Projects
  • CARA
  • Forest Certification
  • 2002 Farm Bill
  • Energy Crisis & Federal Eminent Domain
  • Red Hills Salamander
  • State or Local Issues
  • Constitutional Revision/Tax Reform
  • County Zoning
  • Right to Farm & Practice Forestry
  • Illegal Dumping
  • Delaney Family Current-Use Case
  • JeffCo Storm Water Management Program
  • Current Use Tax Assessment Rates
  • Local Harvesting Restrictions & Road Weight Limits
  • Bridge Repairs & the Alabama Trust Fund
  • Dog Hunting & Hunter Trespass
  • Forest Management Issues
  • Seasonal Forest and Wildlife Management Tips
  • Southern Pine Beetle: Salvage & Prevention
  • Forest Fertilization
  • Intensive Forest Management
  • Long Rotation Management & Natural Regeneration
  • Technology
  • Palm Pilots & Forest Records
  • Useful Computer Software
  • Markets
  • Industry Consolidation & Timber Markets
  • Stumpage & Forest Product Markets
  • Forestland For Sale
  • Wood Buying Policies During SPB Epidemic
  • Alabama's Pine Straw Wholesale Market
  • Minerals, Gas & Oil Activity
  • Recreational Businesses for Forest Owners
  • Forest Taxation