SPEAKERS CONTENTS INSERTS
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00–000 DTP
2001
2001
FORMULATION OF THE 2002 FARM BILL
(FORESTRY, FOOD STAMPS)
HEARINGS
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON DEPARTMENT OPERATIONS,
OVERSIGHT, NUTRITION, AND FORESTRY
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
JUNE 12, 27, 28, 2001
Serial No. 107–10
Part 2
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COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
LARRY COMBEST, Texas, Chairman
JOHN A. BOEHNER, Ohio
Vice Chairman
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
NICK SMITH, Michigan
TERRY EVERETT, Alabama
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma
SAXBY CHAMBLISS, Georgia
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
BOB SCHAFFER, Colorado
JOHN R. THUNE, South Dakota
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota
BOB RILEY, Alabama
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MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Idaho
DOUG OSE, California
ROBIN HAYES, North Carolina
ERNIE FLETCHER, Kentucky
CHARLES W. ''CHIP'' PICKERING, Mississippi
TIMOTHY V. JOHNSON, Illinois
TOM OSBORNE, Nebraska
MIKE PENCE, Indiana
DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
SAM GRAVES, Missouri
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida
MARK R. KENNEDY, Minnesota
CHARLES W. STENHOLM, Texas,
Ranking Minority Member
GARY A. CONDIT, California
COLLIN C. PETERSON, Minnesota
CALVIN M. DOOLEY, California
EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
SANFORD D. BISHOP, Jr., Georgia
BENNIE G. THOMPSON, Mississippi
JOHN ELIAS BALDACCI, Maine
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
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MIKE McINTYRE, North Carolina
BOB ETHERIDGE, North Carolina
LEONARD L. BOSWELL, Iowa
DAVID D. PHELPS, Illinois
KEN LUCAS, Kentucky
MIKE THOMPSON, California
BARON P. HILL, Indiana
JOE BACA, California
RICK LARSEN, Washington
MIKE ROSS, Arkansas
ANÍBAL ACEVEDO-VILÁ, Puerto Rico
RON KIND, Wisconsin
RONNIE SHOWS, Mississippi
Professional Staff
WILLIAM E. O'CONNER, JR., Staff Director
LANCE KOTSCHWAR, Chief Counsel
STEPHEN HATERIUS, Minority Staff Director
KEITH WILLIAMS, Communications Director
Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia, Chairman
RICHARD W. POMBO, California
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Vice Chairman
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
JOHN COOKSEY, Louisiana
MICHAEL K. SIMPSON, Illinois
DENNIS R. REHBERG, Montana
ADAM H. PUTNAM, Florida
EVA M. CLAYTON, North Carolina,
Ranking Minority Member
MARION BERRY, Arkansas
ANÍBAL ACEVEDO-VILÁ, Puerto Rico
EARL F. HILLIARD, Alabama
TIM HOLDEN, Pennsylvania
JOHN ELIAS BALDACCI, Maine
BRENT W. GATTIS, Subcommittee Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
Clayton, Hon. Eva M., a Representative in Congress from the State of North Carolina, opening statement
Prepared statement
Goodlatte, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia, opening statement
JUNE 12, 2001
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Witnesses
Fledderman, Robert, Forest Resources Manager, Forest Resources Division, Westvaco Corporation, Summerville, SC
Prepared statement
Hayes, Lark, Senior Attorney, Southern Environmental Law Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
Prepared statement
Larson, L. Keville, president, Forest Landowners Association, Mobile, AL
Prepared statement
Leavell, Chuck, member, American Tree Farm System, Dry Branch, GA
Prepared statement
Reid, C.P.P. (Patrick), president-elect, National Association of Professional Forestry Schools and Colleges, Tucson, AZ
Prepared statement
Smith, David, vice-president, Society of American Foresters, Blacksburg, VA
Prepared statement
Submitted Material
The Intertribal Timber Council, statement
Smith, Dave, National Council on Private Forests, statement
JUNE 27, 2001—Food Stamps
Clayton, Hon. Eva M., a Representative in Congress from the State of North Carolina, opening statement
Goodlatte, Hon. Bob, , a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia, opening statement
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Witnesses
Bost, Eric M., Under Secretary, Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement
Brunty, Coeli, Food Stamp Program participant, Emmitsburg, MD
Prepared statement
Dean, Stacy, director, food stamp and immigrant policy, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Friedman, Jerry W., executive deputy commissioner, Texas Department of Human Services, Austin, TX
Prepared statement
Haskins, Ron, senior fellow, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Howard, Douglas E., director, Michigan Family Independence Agency, Lansing, MI
Prepared statement
Levin, Hon. Sander M., a Representative in Congress from the State of Michigan
Nelson, Claryce H., State coordinator for consumer issues, AARP, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Ohls, James, senior fellow, Mathematica Policy Research, Inc., Washington, DC
Prepared statement
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Rector, Robert, senior research fellow, Heritage Foundation, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Reinert, Jenifer, secretary, Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, Madison, WI
Prepared statement
Rivero, Sonia, commissioner, Virginia Department of Social Services, Richmond, VA
Prepared statement
Robertson, Robert E., Director, Education, Workforce and Income Security Issues, General Accounting Office, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Ryan, Elaine M., acting executive director, American Public Human Services Association, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Savner, Rich, director, public affairs and government relations, Pathmark Stores, Inc., Carteret, NJ, on behalf of the Food Marketing Institute
Prepared statement
Viadero, Roger C., Inspector General, Office of the Inspector General, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Wagstaff, Bruce, deputy director, Welfare Work Divisions, California Department of Social Services, Sacramento, CA
Prepared statement
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Submited Material
Alameda County Community Food Bank, et al., statement
American Public Human Services Association, statement
Hall, Hon Tony P, a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio, statement
National Governors Association, statement
Sanders, Hon. Bernard, a Representative in Congress from the State of Vermont, statement
Turner, Jason A., commissioner, Human Resources Administration, the city of New York, NY, statement
United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable, statement
Walsh, Hon James T., a Representative in Congress from the State of New York, statement
JUNE 28, 2001—Forestry
Clayton, Hon. Eva M., a Representative in Congress from the State of North Carolina, opening statement
Goodlatte, Hon. Bob, a Representative in Congress from the Commonwealth of Virginia, opening statement
Witnesses
Bendfeldt, Eric, extension agent, Environmental Sciences, Virginia Cooperative Extension Service, Harrisonburg, VA
Prepared statement
Berkland, Mark, Director, Conservation Operations, Natural Resources Conservation Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement
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Hefferan, Colien, Administrator, Cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement
Hubbard, Jim, legislative committee chair, Colorado State Forester, National Association of State Foresters, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Rains, Michael T., Deputy Chief, State and Private Forestry, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture
Prepared statement
Rohall, Ronald, consulting forester, National Forestry Policy Committee, National Association of Conservation Districts, Washington, DC
Prepared statement
Submitted Material
Shay, Russell, subnitted statement
FORMULATION OF THE 2002 FARM BILL
(FORESTRY PROGRAMS)
TUESDAY, JUNE 12, 2001
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Department Operations,
Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry,
Committee on Agriculture,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:08 a.m., in room 1300, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Bob Goodlatte (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
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Present: Representatives Rehberg and Clayton.
Staff present: Brent Gattis, subcommittee staff director; Callista Gingrich, clerk; Claire Folbre, Susanna Love, and Walter Vinson.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. BOB GOODLATTE, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE COMMONWEALTH OF VIRGINIA
Mr. GOODLATTE. Good morning. Today we convene the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry to hear testimony on the forestry provisions of the 2002 farm bill.
This subcommittee has the responsibility for determining what kinds of forestry provisions will be included in the next farm bill and ultimately what the landscape of Forest Service programs available to private landowners will look like over the next decade. It is our task to create a path through what may look like a wooded thicket of programs, regulations, and red tape towards sustainable land management on both public and private lands.
This is a very exciting time to be involved in forest policy as we look at the new farm bill and a new opportunity to alter, keep, and create Forest Service authorizations. We must take this opportunity to closely examine those programs already authorized in past pieces of legislation and look at the present and future challenges to determine priorities for the 2002 farm bill.
I look forward to hearing from the witnesses their ideas about what has worked and what hasn't in past farm bills and to hear about any new potential programs that may have a place in the upcoming bill.
Proper forest management is vital to the health of our forests and our communities. My home State of Virginia is covered by 167 million acres of forested land; 77 percent of these forests are owned by farmers and other private non-industrial landowners. I believe we have a wonderful opportunity and a responsibility to support programs that reach out to these private landowners as well as continue to support and sustain our Federal and State lands.
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Nationally, 54 percent of America's forests are owned by private individuals. These lands provide us with a plethora of products and recreational opportunities and an immeasurable quantity of clean air, clean water and habitat for both animals and people. The farm bill is about helping our neighbors and helping our country sustain itself on the land. The land gives us many things, from corn and beans and grass for pasture, to trees for shelter, recreation, and a clean environment.
I believe strongly that forestry should play an important role in the development of a new farm bill and I look forward to working closely with all of the interested parties to fully consider these programs, and most especially our ranking member, Mrs. Clayton of North Carolina, who I am now pleased to welcome.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. EVA M. CLAYTON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NORTH CAROLINA
Mrs. CLAYTON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Good morning, panelists. I want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this hearing and soliciting the views of the leaders and those who are activists in the whole area of our forests. It is indeed an opportune time as we consider the farm bill to begin to understand and appreciate and make assessment of what things are working and the reflection of how our forests have changed and how the dynamics and the challenges for the new century may cause us also to look at new programs and new opportunities.
In reviewing the testimony of some the witnesses, I was reminded about the drastic shift in terms of forestry and where that has happened. Mr. Chairman, it is moving south, I must say, in terms of the areas. You are correct in terms of the percentage of landowners privately as compared to what are owned by the Government, but even more drastic is a shift now moving from the Midwest and the West to the Southeast. And my State happens to be one of the four States that seem to be far more active in that area.
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So if we are going to maintain the kind of sustainability and the future enjoyment for future generations, I think we are challenged with looking at how do we provide the kind of incentives and the technical assistance to these new trustees and the future owners of the forests for the future. So we need to empower them with information. We need to engage them in formulating strategies that not only will allow them to prosper in terms of their own tilling and the laboring of the soil, but also they can transfer the goods that the trees have in terms of recreation, esthetic, and environment to their heirs in future generations. So I think we have a unique opportunity to reflect, to see what there is, but also to indeed prepare for the future.
Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to put my statement into the record later.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection it is so ordered.
[The prepared statement of Mrs. Clayton follows:]
PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. EVA M. CLAYTON
Thank you Mr. Chairman for holding this hearing on the role of forestry within our agricultural economy and on how we can update and improve our forestry programs at the Department of Agriculture.
Ordinarily, when people think of agriculture, they tend to conjure up images of amber waves of grain rather than stands of pine groves. In fact, many people are surprised to learn that, after corn, forestry is our Nation's leading commodity, with sales of $22 billion per year. Given the important role that forestry plays in our Nation's economy, the lack of attention that we pay to it as an agricultural product is striking. Today's hearing will allow us an opportunity to remedy this shortcoming to some extent.
This hearing is especially pertinent today for our subcommittee given that the chairman of the subcommittee hails from Virginia and that I come from the great State of North Carolina. It is a little known fact that the Southeast has become the most intensively cut region of the United States, leading some to refer to it as the ''fiber basket of the world.'' In fact, as the testimony of Ms. Hayes points out, harvest levels in the Southeast have increased by 50 percent in the past 20 years. This has come at a time when timber harvests have been slowing in many other parts of the country.
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This raises serious questions about the sustainability of our southeastern forests. It is my hope that the upcoming farm bill will enable us to address these matters with equal concern for those who profit economically from the strategic use of our forest resources and those who derive benefits from alternative uses of our forest lands that are dependent upon the long-term preservation of our resource base.
There are some people who will try to polarize the issues at stake here, painting conservationists concerned about the future of our forests and private landowners who seek to manage their lands for profit as equally unwilling to consider the views of each other. That is often how views are framed here in Washington.
However, it is critical to recognize that all of us have a stake in the future of our forests. It is small-minded to move forward on these discussions about the future of our forests with a ''winner takes all'' mentality.
In reading through the testimony presented today, I was struck by the degree of agreement among all of our witnesses. In spite of the wide range of experience and interests testifying here today, a number of themes emerged that we must remember as we move forward with our consideration of our farm programs.
First, we must significantly increase the amount of resources that we devote to forestry. As noted earlier, forests constitute a very significant portion of our agricultural output, yet the funding that they receive is next to nothing. It is telling that, while many row crops and commodities receive mandatory funding, our forestry programs have been required to struggle for resources within the discretionary appropriations process.
The chronic lack of resources afforded to forest management takes on even greater significance when considered alongside the shift of our forestry from public to private lands. Quite simply, the shift from public to private lands will require that we provide private landowners with management resources. It is simply not possible to take a ''one size fits all'' policy that works well on our National Forests and to transport it in identical form to private lands. Private lands will require a different kind of resources, namely in the form of technical assistance and planning.
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This brings us to the second area of agreement. The testimony presented today is consistent in its insistence that private landowners are poorly informed about how best to manage their land and thus require training and technical assistance in their efforts to be good stewards. Providing this technical assistance is important no matter which direction landowners choose to take.
For those who choose to harvest their lands, sound technical assistance and forest planning can help them to do so in a way that is beneficial both to their bottom line as well as to the long-term health of the forests. For others, up-front technical assistance will enable them to see that preserving their land for alternative uses, such as wildlife or recreation, will ultimately be a more prudent decision both for the landowners and for those to whom they hope to pass along their land.
I am not so naive as to believe that everyone on this subcommittee shares precisely the same beliefs as to how to move forward with our review of forestry policy. There is clearly some divergence of opinion as to the definition, nature, and degree of accountability and performance measures that are necessitated on our private lands. However, I am nonetheless encouraged to see that we begin this process with common ground and a shared concern from all parties that current Federal policy is poorly attuned to the needs of private landowners in terms of both resources and technical assistance.
I look forward to moving forward with my colleagues on these matters as we continue our work on the farm bill and the role of forestry policy within it.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Our program for this hearing of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition, and Forestry is to have one panel of witnesses, which are already at the table and I will introduce them now.
We first have Mr. Robert Fledderman, environmental manager, forest resources division, Westvaco Corporation, from Summerville, South Carolina. Dr. David Smith, vice-president, Society of American Foresters in Blacksburg, Virginia, very close to my district. Mr. Chuck Leavell, member of the American Tree Farm System in Dry Branch, Georgia, and wearing a different hat than many of us know him from the Rolling Stones. Dr. Patrick Reid, president-elect, National Association of Professional Forestry Schools and Colleges, Tucson, Arizona. Mr. L. Keville Larson, president, Forest Landowners Association, Mobile, Alabama. And Ms. Lark Hayes, senior attorney, Southern Environmental Law Center, Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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I would like to welcome all of you today and let you know your written statements will be made a part of the record. And we would be pleased to receive your testimony at this point, which we would ask that you attempt to limit to 5 minutes. Starting with Mr. Fledderman, welcome.
STATEMENT OF ROBERT FLEDDERMAN, ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGER, FOREST RESOURCES DIVISION, WESTVACO CORPORATION, SUMMERVILLE, SC
Mr. FLEDDERMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the forest industry's perspective to reauthorize and enhance the forestry programs in the farm bill. Congress has a great opportunity here to promote sustainable forest management. I am speaking today on behalf of Westvaco as well as the membership of the American Forest and Paper Association.
Westvaco is a major manufacturer of paper packaging and speciality chemicals, employing 18,000 men and women. The company owns and manages nearly 1.3 million acres of forestlands in the United States and in adherence with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Program, or SFI, our holdings support mill operations in six southeastern States.
Additionally, Westvaco foresters work with 2,800 private landowners in our Landowner Assistance Program that is designed in part to educate landowners about sustainable forestry. These private landowners together own almost 1.4 million acres.
I mentioned the SFI program which is a comprehensive system of principles, guidelines, and performance measures that integrates the perpetual growing and harvesting of trees with protection of wildlife, fish, plants, soil and air, and water quality. Today there are over 100 million acres enrolled in the program. Congress has a tremendous opportunity in the farm bill to assist non-industrial private forest landowners striving to achieve sustainable forest management, much as the SFI does for industrial lands.
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In the past decade, dramatic shifts have taken place in forest dynamics, including intensified global competition, the virtual locking up of America's national forests, greater dependence on private landowners to supply wood products, and State forest agencies taking on greater responsibilities to protect forest resources in addition to their traditional role of fire prevention and suppression.
Despite these changing dynamics, direct Federal assistance to non-industrial private forest landowners is a scant $6 million, representing less than one-half of 1 percent of all commodity support.
It is appropriate at this time to reassess the Nation's commitment to sustainable forestry and determine how programs can be enhanced and improved. Today only 10 percent of private forest landowners use a professional forester when harvesting their timber. Current education and outreach programs on sustainable forestry are insufficient to meet current needs. And looking ahead, given the expected increase in the number of forest landowners, the Nation will need an upgraded delivery system for forestry program and services.
The primary delivery mechanism for forestry programs is through the Forest Stewardship Program. I have two suggestions to improve the program. First, build the capacity of State forestry agencies to assist forest landowners in sustainable forest management. Second, allow technical assistance to meet the requirements of Federal mandates. Specifically, the Forest Stewardship Program should be adjusted to provide State foresters with the authority to focus resources and technical assistance on priorities established through their offices, State forestry technical committees, and in cooperation with local communities.
Additionally, express authority should be given to State foresters or their equivalent to prepare grants and seek outside proposals to promote sustainable forestry programs on private non-industrial land. In concert with many of the State foresters, we support increased spending for the program as well as building in more flexibility. The only Federal program providing direct financial assistance is the Forestry Incentives Program, or FIP. FIP provides cost-share funds for tree planting, site appropriation and things. While we believe there is an essential element of sustainable forestry, it is only a small part of the myriad of practices that together achieve sustainable management.
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The Stewardship Incentives Programs, or SIP, another cost-share assistance program is designed to enroll private non-industrial forest landowners into a program that requires written management plans. Due to a variety of Federal requirements, State foresters found most landowners were not interested in this program. Congress has not funded SIP in recent years.
To enhance all sustainable forestry practices, we believe it is time to combine FIP and SIP to create a single integrated program called the Sustainable Forestry Incentives Program or SFIP. The new SFIP program should be flexible enough to encourage private landowners to conduct a variety of environmental beneficial forestry practices; for example, professional forestry assistance, conservation easements on lands threatened by development pressures, longer education and training, invasive pest control, fire hazard reduction and wildlife and fish habitat enhancement.
The ultimate goal of the SFIP will be to entice non-industrial private forest landowners to participate in programs and then explain the benefits of developing written management plans. This type of program would require substantial financial support from Congress.
A new and improved forestry title should link State forestry agency programs into a comprehensive effort to address forest sustainability. It should allow State foresters to work with landowners and their fellow State agencies, while providing administrative flexibility to target resources to those on the ground, challenges that are most urgently needed.
The single most useful thing we can do to better protect our environment is to maintain our private forestland base. This is a difficult task with increasing development pressures and growing regulatory constraints. I submit that the best way to protect forestland is to enable private landowners to profitably manage their lands while using sustainable forestry techniques. I believe the program changes we propose here, along with the increased funding, amount to a significant first step in reaching that goal.
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Mr. Chairman, that concludes my remarks. I will be glad to take any questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Fledderman appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. Now we are pleased to welcome Mr. Smith.
STATEMENT OF DAVID SMITH, VICE-PRESIDENT, SOCIETY OF AMERICAN FORESTERS, BLACKSBURG, VA
Mr. SMITH. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is David Smith.
I come before you to discuss an underutilized potential resource to achieve forest sustainability in this Nation, namely non-industrial private forest landowners. They are absolutely essential to the sustainability of our Nation's forests, and there are significant opportunities to help them realize their potential.
SAF is proposing two major initiatives and changes to existing Federal conservation programs in order to improve the sustainability of the Nation's forests. The two initiatives are: One, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Program, an effort to provide incentives to private landowners beyond commercial activities; and, two, the Sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative which would be a targeted campaign to educate forest landowners about sustainable forestry and the importance and availability of professional forestry assistance, and other opportunities.
My testimony is modeled after a working paper developed by the National Council on Private Forests. The NCPF is a collection of organizations interested in private forestry. These organizations have come together to articulate a common set of principles regarding farm bill programs, and I would like to submit their working paper for the record.
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NIPF landowners own approximately 363 million acres or nearly one-half of the Nation's forestland. This is an area twice the size of Texas and 14 times the size of the State of Virginia. These forests provide important public benefits, including wildlife habitat, clean water, recreational opportunities, open space, clean air, and other environmental benefits. They also provide important forest products. In fact, NIPF lands provided almost 60 percent of the Nation's timber harvest in 1996, and as timber harvests on National Forests continue to decline, the number of private landowners harvesting timber continues to grow. However, the most optimistic studies show that almost 10 percent of the estimated 9.9 million non-industrial private landowners consult a professional forester prior to harvest. Landowners are making important business transactions without using professional advice. These lands are the least intensively managed of any forest ownership category in the Nation. Much of this land in timber sales follows an unusual event in the owner's life, often in response to a personal situation such as a college education, illness, retirement, or other financial needs. NIPF landowners need technical advice and most are not even aware of this need.
The two major initiatives and changes to assisting Federal conservation programs being proposed are major steps in ensuring the sustainability of our Nation's forests, and will further strengthen existing partnerships among Federal and State agencies, colleges and universities, and professional organizations.
The first, the Sustainable Forest Incentive Programs will provide Federal funding to implement conservation practices that benefit the public. The program must be complementary to efforts to provide educational outreach on sustainable forestry and offer technical assistance to landowners. The program would fund a broad array of practices such as wind breaks, forested wetland management, control of invasive species, and fire protection that landowners typically do not implement due to lack of financial resources, and an integrated delivery mechanism combining financial assistance, technical assistance, and educational outreach to implement these conservation practices.
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The second, the Sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative the goals of which for forest landowners to inform them of the value and benefits of practicing sustainable forestry, the importance of professional forestry advice to achieving their objectives, and the variety of public and private sector resources available to assist them in implementing sustainable forestry.
The outreach effort would be funded through USDA CREES, or Extension, and implemented with the assistance of SAF, members of the SAF, the State foresters and university partners. A major thrust initiative would be the reauthorization and expansion of the Renewable Resources Extension Act.
A second major emphasis will be to enable nongovernment organizations to deliver forestry advice and expertise. The goal would be to reach a substantial number of the 4.1 million individuals and families who own forested tracts larger than 10 acres. There will be specific emphasis on peer-to-peer learning and outreach. The effort will allow landowners to explore opportunities to improve the condition of their land and improve the value of their property, provide public benefits by improved forestlands, all at a minimal cost to the Government because we are largely using private sector dollars and programs to get the work done.
Finally, we recommend that forestry be an explicit goal of all traditional conservation programs authorized in the farm bill. We can reap major conservation and environmental benefits from practices of forestry, and these programs ought to be actively encouraged for forestry.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. The Society of American Foresters and its 17,500 members are dedicated to the sustainable management of our forests for all of the uses and values, and we shoulder a significant responsibility for implementing forest management practices that are based on the best science and experience that is available. Thank you.
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[The prepared statement of Mr. Smith appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. Mr. Leavell, welcome.
STATEMENT OF CHUCK LEAVELL, MEMBER, AMERICAN TREE FARM SYSTEM, DRY BRANCH, GA
Mr. LEAVELL. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask permission to make my written statement a part of the record along with some other brief documents.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Without objection, it will be.
Mr. LEAVELL. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, I am here to represent myself, my wife Rose Lane, as well as the 65,000 members of the American Tree Farm System. All of us have pledged to manage our forestland for water quality, for wildlife and for recreation. And we do it so that our kids and our neighbors' kids can enjoy the same healthy, thriving forest that we enjoy today. Together we own about 26 million acres of the most beautiful, diverse forestland in the country. But frankly, to quote that great American, Kermit the Frog, ''It ain't easy being green''.
Mr. Chairman, I would like to briefly tell about our story at Shore Lane Plantation. My wife inherited some 1,200 acres back in 1981 from her grandmother. This was land that her grandfather had purchased in the thirties. Things were a lot different in 1981, I realize that, and certainly inflation was different, interest rates were different, and the estate tax situation was different. But I can tell you from a personal standpoint that it was a struggle to keep that land, and in fact we had to sell a portion of it in order to keep the bulk of it. And it was also a struggle to rebuild that land.
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How does all this relate to the farm bill? Well, first of all, people like Rose Lane and I are the majority owners of our Nation's forests. There are also 10 million of us altogether: teachers truck drivers, lawyers, doctors, Congressmen, Senators, even former Presidents.
The number of people who own forestland is growing very rapidly, but the size of the woodlands is shrinking. Over the past 50 years, the average size of a family-owned woodlot has shrunk to less than 20 acres. At the same time, more and more people are living far away from their forestland. Rose Lane and I learned about our forests, but most forest owners today don't really know all that much about sustainable forestry. Only 5 percent or so are have a written plan that provides for the future of their forest.
Finally, even though most forest owners aren't experts in the practice of sustainable forestry, their hearts are certainly in the right place. And I am convinced that, like me and Rose Lane, most of these folks would practice the best kind of sustainable forestry if they could. And that is the problem. Right now, there are a lot of pressures and problems that make it harder, not easier, for folks to be ''green.'' sprawl and development is one. Land values are skyrocketing in the outer suburbs where forests meet cities. Helping forest owners sustain the income stream they need to sustain their forests is critical. Otherwise, I can tell you from my own experience, the economics are all wrong.
Another roadblock to sustainability is education and outreach. We need to do much more in the way of outreach and education to get the millions of uninvolved forest landowners on the pathway towards sustainability. Once folks take that first step toward sustainability, they will soon discover that the next steps require a good deal of technical assistance and, for most of us, some financial assistance as well. But right now, Federal programs and incentives provided for forest owners are meager, fragmented, and often delivered in a way that limits the number of forest owners they can serve.
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Many of the conservation programs already in place do not place a high enough priority on conserving and sustaining forests, so forest owners are almost always stuck at the back of the line and very rarely do they make it to the front of the line. And I know because that is what happened to us. We need to change all that.
With other members of the National Council on Private Forests, we would ask to you consider the following: consolidating and expanding the Forestry Incentives Program and Stewardship Incentive Program into a new Sustainable Forestry Incentives Program. We recommend that this new program be funded through mandatory funding at $150 million a year, that the funds be available for a broad range of conservation practices, that it be administered through State forestry agencies and stewardship committees that represent forest landowners, and that it be organized so that the administrative costs are minimized.
Rose Lane and I know how important it is to put Federal dollars to work on the ground and not back at the office. We also ask that you consider creating a new sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative that can provide education and technical assistance. We at the American Tree Farm System believe strongly in the power of peer-to-peer mentoring, that one exemplary steward can lead his or her neighbors towards sustainability, So we urge that the initiative provide for nongovernmental organizations like tree farms to play a key role. And finally, we urge you to make sustainable forestry and forest conservation a priority goal for all the USDA conservation programs that are already in place, so like other rural landowners, we can keep our woodlands producing wood as well as the other public benefits that come from the forests.
Mr. Chairman, I have just written a book about sustainable forestry and what it means to us, and we named it Forever Green. That is like our philosophy of conservation. It is in that same spirit that we offer these recommendations today to keep our Nation's forests working intact and, indeed, forever green. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Leavell appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you Mr. Leavell. I will be sure to get a copy.
Mr. Reid.
STATEMENT OF C.P.P. (PATRICK) REID, PRESIDENT-ELECT, NAPFSC, AND DIRECTOR, SCHOOL OF RENEWABLE NATURAL RESOURCES, UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
Mr. REID. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the subcommittee. I am director of the School of Renewable Natural Resources at the University of Arizona. But I am here in my capacity as president-elect of the National Association of Professional Forestry Schools and Colleges. We are often known by our acronym, NAPFSC. NAPFSC is comprised of 67 universities that conduct the Nation's research, teaching and extension programs in forestry and natural resource management. NAPFSC schools work in close partnership with the USDA research programs through extramural contracts and cooperative agreements. In representing NAPFSC, I also have the privilege of serving as the Chair of the National Coalition on Sustaining America's non-Federal forests.
NAPFSC certainly appreciates the opportunity to provide this testimony on our priority farm bill issues. First of all I would like to convey a sense of urgency in regard to this Nation's non-Federal forestlands and its private landowners, and to emphasize the importance of research, education, and extension efforts by our public universities. In early 1999, NAPFSC was one of several organizations that helped establish the National Coalition for Sustaining America's non-Federal Forests. This was in response to a growing national awareness and concern for the many issues and problems facing the sustainability of the more than 487 million acres of non-Federal forestland in this country. This is approximately two-thirds of the total forestland in this Nation.
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The sustainability and stewardship of these non-Federal forestlands are economically, environmentally, and socially vital to this Nation. Today these non-Federal forestlands are threatened by urbanization, fragmentation, forest health problems, and increasing harvesting pressures.
Exacerbating the issue of sustainability of these lands is a growing number of private forest landowners that are inexperienced in forest stewardship practices and thus ill prepared to make informed decisions about their forests. This past year, the National Coalition for Sustaining America's non-Federal Forests documented a plan of action to conserve and sustain our Nation's non-Federal forestland, a plan that NAPFSC fully endorses. The Coalition's report, dated June 2000, ''A National Investment in Sustainable Forestry,'' has recently been sent to every Member of Congress. This report stresses the importance of cooperation among the public universities, State forestry agencies, Federal agencies, NGOs and the many forestland stakeholders. Key elements of this plan are research capacity and concerted effort on stakeholder priorities. The report documents the need for substantial investment to provide the science foundation for the sustainability of these forests, the need to transfer this knowledge into on-the-ground management and conservation practices, and the need to build professional capacity in every forested region of this Nation.
Based on this report, NAPFSC recommends the incorporation of a forestry title in the farm bill with a subtitle dealing with research, education, and extension. Furthermore, we recommend that the forestry title emphasize the need for a national initiative for stewardship and sustainability of America's non-Federal forests. Our NAPFSC institutions believe that research, education, and extension are prerequisites for non-Federal forest sustainability. Historically, our Nation's state colleges and universities, particularly those with land grant status, have been principal providers of non-Federal forestry and natural resources research, education, and extension. These institutions possess the expertise and infrastructure to conduct research and educational programs to transfer new knowledge to forest landowners and to provide the trained professionals we will need for research extension and implementation of new and improved practices.
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Our recommendations for the farm bill basically suggest ways to attain three major goals:
First, a foundation of research-based knowledge that allows informed decision-making on the management and conservation alternatives necessary to achieve the objectives of America's non-Federal forest landowners and society at large.
Second, a cadre of forestry source professionals with the skills necessary to address the needs of all segments of our society, especially those that manage and provide stewardship on non-Federal forestlands.
And finally, an established and effective extension and outreach infrastructure that provides timely delivery of knowledge-based products to those who must make management and policy decisions concerning non-Federal forestlands.
More specifically, we recommend increasing funding in the McIntyre-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Research Act, the National Research Initiative, and increasing collaborative research with the Forest Service. We need to increase our capacity to provide extension, education, technology transfer, and outreach to forest landowners, so we recommend reauthorization and expanding RREA and collaborative efforts with State and private forestry, the Forest Service and private stakeholders.
To meet the need for integration and coordination of research, education, and extension with Federal financial and technical assistance programs and to provide oversight for national initiatives on non-Federal forests, we recommend establishing a national advisory board on non-Federal forests and four regional research and educational centers.
In closing, we think these investments will make a difference and begin to lead us towards truly productive and sustainable non-Federal forests and increase the opportunity for the Nation. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Reid appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. Mr. Larson. Welcome.
STATEMENT OF L. KEVILLE LARSON, PRESIDENT, FOREST LANDOWNERS ASSOCIATION, MOBILE, AL
Mr. LARSON. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, after 40 years of being a consultant forester and 30 years of being a forest landowner, I feel confident I am expressing some of the views of forest landowners and I am proud to be representing the Forest Landowners Association today. Most Federal and other public timberlands are managed with little or no emphasis to timber production. Most industrial timberland managed to maximize production. The remaining 50 to 60 percent of the Nation's timberland owned in nearly 10 million non-industrial private ownerships is free to be managed for a wide variety of objectives as set by the owners. These ownerships include farmers, investors, individuals, and many family combinations.
I know of one person who owns some land in his own name, another tract—he is not a large landowner—another small tract jointly with his wife, another tract with his brother and sister, and another one with cousins and brothers and sisters. There are a lot of combinations and a lot of parties involved.
It is nearly impossible to generalize about the circumstance, objectives, or reasons they own land. Some manage for timber, some use the property for recreation, and some are holding for development. However, it is safe to say that on the whole, no one takes better care of or values forestland more than these owners.
Today, non-industrial private forestlands are more diverse, better stocked, better managed than in any time in the past 100 years. Much of the improvement occurred while there were few regulations and while increasing amounts of timber were produced. In short, the history of private forestlands is a great success story. Credit for the success should go to the natural responses and reactions of non-industrial owners to the free market supply-and-demand forces and their interest in responsible management.
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When asked what they need to do a better job, these owners, in conferences around the country, including the Seventh American Forest Congress, have said tax changes, information, and better markets are their highest priorities. They do not ask for handouts or landowner welfare. Of course, they are not fools, and if industry—to keep prices low—and Government agencies—to expand their influence successfully—lobby for a giveaway program, they will respond. They will stop spending their own money and may even delay plans to wait for free money. In addition, such tampering with supply and demand can result in imbalances like those in other agricultural commodities.
Many statistics are cited and reasons given as to why attention from the Government should be given to these lands. Such information should be considered carefully. For instance, over half of the 10 million ownerships consist of 1- to 99-acre size holdings and may not be viable for forest management.
The information that only 5 percent of landowners have a written management plan is often cited as proof that something must be done. This is an example of a highly misleading statistic: first, that management plans are always necessary. It is not universally accepted. Second, those 5 percent of the landowners represent 40 percent of the acres. Based on this kind of information, many well-meaning people advocate Government programs or money to solve perceived problems.
For years, much of the forestry community called non-industrial private forest owners a problem because they were not growing as much timber as others wanted. Their volume has nearly doubled in 35 years. Now the forest community says there are problems facing these owners such as fragmentation, urbanization, forest health, and programs must be created to help them. The way to help them is to reduce tax disincentives such as the death tax, highly destructive to timberlands, limitations on expensing and income averaging. Doesn't make sense for a small landowner who could only harvest timber once every 10 years to not be able to average that income.
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Provide information, minimize regulations, don't interfere too much and let the market operate.
To summarize recommendations for guiding principles of the farm bill, and we have presented some written testimony, the Forest Landowners Association has always supported research and education as an appropriate role of Government. If there is any other program, we believe it should be incentive-based not a cash subsidy. If any payments or services are to be offered, it is especially important to follow the precedent of the 1950 Cooperative Forest Management Act, direct delivery through the private sector. It is more efficient.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear. I will be glad to discuss any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Larson appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you. Ms. Hayes, we are pleased to have your testimony.
STATEMENT OF LARK HAYES, SENIOR ATTORNEY, SOUTHERN ENVIRONMENTAL LAW CENTER, CHAPEL HILL, NC
Ms. HAYES. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, my name is Lark Hayes and I am a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. That organization is a regional environmental organization focused on the protection of the natural resources of six southeastern States from Virginia through the two Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama and Tennessee. Because the region in which we work is the largest timber-producing region of the country, is leading the Nation in the loss of forestland, and is home to the greatest number of remaining wetlands in the lower 48 States, we have an intense interest in the reauthorization of the farm bill.
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I gather, like others here, an overarching point I would like to make from the outset is that the forestry-related programs have historically not received either the attention or the funding which we believe is badly needed to assist forest landowners and also to address a range of issues facing our Nation's private forestlands. Accordingly, we appreciate you holding this hearing today. Because my views are derived from my experience in the Southeast, I want to take just a minute to note some of the recent developments and projected trends. We think these are of national significance. Most importantly, the committee needs to understand that harvest levels in the Southeast have greatly intensified in the past 20 years, up 50 percent from mid–1970 levels. As Mrs. Clayton noted, other parts of the country have been reducing their timber harvest, collectively down by a fourth.
Serious issues about the sustainability of forest resources in our region are being asked. Using the traditional approach of comparing growth versus grain or harvest levels, we already know that softwood harvests across our region are at unsustainable levels. And in States like mine and Mrs. Clayton's, North Carolina, the official projections are that all harvests, including hardwoods, will be unsustainable by the year 2005. For these reasons, our last Chief of the Forest Service regularly spoke out about the issue of sustainability of southeastern forests.
These increased harvest levels in our region are creating many different pressures on our forest resources, on habitat for wildlife and rare species, and on water quality. With that backdrop in mind, let me make a couple of suggestions and draw your attention to a couple of specific issues:
First, native forestland in our region is being lost at an alarming rate. The only Federal program that specifically addresses loss of forestland is Forest Legacy, but it has been historically very much underfunded, even though it is hugely popular. My recommendation and request is that this committee consider mandating a minimum level of annual funding for the Forest Legacy Program in the range of several hundred million a year.
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My second concern is that the southeastern States, in my view, are poorly prepared in terms of forest policies and laws to address the potential environmental impacts of all of this increased harvesting. Most of these laws were prepared back in the era of mom-and-pop forestry, if you will, and are not up to the challenges of the intensive harvest levels we are experiencing today.
The overall picture: No forest practices act, no preharvest notification, no mandatory certification or training of lawyers, no statewide mandatory best management practices.
The solution in my view is that we use the significant Federal dollars that will be handed out in the farm bill to create incentives for State forestry programs to meet some prescribed level of Federal effectiveness with regard to environmental safeguards as a condition of receiving significant Federal dollars.
A third concern I have is the continued loss of forested wetlands in our region due to silviculture practices. I am particularly focused here on freshwater, forested wetlands. The bottomland hardwood swamp would be a good example. These have very significantly declined and current losses, according to the Status and Trends Report just released by the Fish and Wildlife Service, attribute or place silviculture on a par with agriculture in terms of the cause of the loss of freshwater, forested wetlands.
In my view, the swamp buster provision which has been so successful in limiting the loss of and conversion of wetlands due to agricultural practices should be extended to silvicultural practices.
Finally, like others, I very much support increased assistance for the private non-industrial landowners. My two caveats there would briefly be that we equitably look at the variety of management objectives of these landowners which include, often, wildlife habitat and other objectives along with timber. So let's make sure the support is equitable across the variety of landowner objectives. And let's also ensure that we are only subsidizing practices which really have significant public benefits.
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One example I would like to see an end to is any Federal subsidy for the conversion of natural forest stands to monoculture pine. I think in view of the trends in the region, this is not something we need to be providing Federal subsidies to.
I appreciate the opportunity to appear before you today and look forward to answering any questions you may have.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Hayes appears at the conclusion of the hearing.]
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you very much.
Thank you all for your excellent testimony. We have a number of questions that we would like to ask. Let me begin by giving you a little bit of my perspective on this issue. I don't want to take a lot of time here addressing our policies in our national forests, because I want to keep the focus on private landowners and private forestry, but the two are very integrally related.
Ms. Hayes, you mentioned the dramatic increase in production in forests in the Southeast. I am sure that is true, but I would attribute the primary reason for that to the fact that we have virtually shut down our national forests in terms of harvesting timber. For example, there would be a natural shift from the West, where the overwhelming majority of the land is Federal land, to the Southeast where a majority of the land is privately owned because of that very factor. But my district in the mountains and valleys of western Virginia in the east is a good microcosm of that. My district contains about two-thirds forested land; of that, about half is owned by the Federal Government, about a million acres; about half is owned by private landowners, about a million acres. Of the timber harvested for building homes, for making furniture, for making paper and all the other forest product uses, 95 percent of the production comes off of the private land and 5 percent off of the Federal land, even though they are about equally divided in terms of the amount of acreage of forested land.
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That concerns me greatly because I think you are right, it is putting increased pressure on private land. So I guess my first question to you would be, is it the purpose of your organization to see an overall reduction in productivity from all of our forests, be they national or private, in spite of the fact that demand for wood products is continuing to rise in the country and in spite of the fact that there is tremendous pressure on forest reserves elsewhere in the world where they don't do nearly as good a job as we do in protecting our forestry resources, and continuing to cut back on what we produce here is going to increase that pressure elsewhere in the world?
Ms. HAYES. No, we don't have the goal to reduce overall forest production. That is not a goal of ours and we have never advocated that, and we do not support efforts to end commercial logging on private lands.
Mr. GOODLATTE. How about on Federal land?
Ms. HAYES. I meant to say on Federal lands. Never had that position. Our focus has been exclusively on trying to maintain the health of our public lands in terms of the ecological resource that we see there, but we have never in any proceeding advocated an end to commercial logging on public lands.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me give Mr. Fledderman and Mr. Leavell and others an opportunity to respond. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? From the standpoint of prices for your products on private land, I would imagine that the lack of production on Federal land, limiting the supply, increases the price somewhat, although it also creates an opportunity for those who would import products in the United States because the competitive price outside Canada and other places becomes far more attractive. Or is it a bad thing because it is putting too much pressure on the private land and we should have more production on the Federal land?
Mr. Fledderman.
Mr. FLEDDERMAN. Well, I certainly think that we need to do everything we can to make sure that the private landowners are getting a reasonable price for their timber, and to that extent, it may be a good thing. Perhaps more importantly, though, I think the real crisis on the Federal land is that those lands aren't being managed actively at all; and we are really seeing a decline in their health, and I am very much afraid that we are going to lose them altogether to wildfires and insects and other catastrophes.
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So I think it is just good stewardship that needs to go on in our Federal forests.
Mr. GOODLATTE. In other words, over history, as we have fought forest fires and disease infestation and so on, the buildup of timber in those areas has gotten to the point where about half of all of our Federal forestlands are now subject to catastrophic wildfires that do not just burn on the ground, but destroy the entire forest, like we saw in Idaho and New Mexico and other places last year.
Mr. FLEDDERMAN. They burn up the forests, and they also burn up the forests of the landowners next to them.
Mr. GOODLATTE. That is a good point.
Mr. Leavell, do you have any thoughts on this issue? You are a southeastern private landowner.
Mr. LEVIN. Well, certainly I have an interest, Mr. Chairman, in the price of our goods and the health of the forests, but I would also say that Gifford Pinchot, who started forest management back in the early part of the century, I think had the notion, correctly, that these Federal lands should be managed in part as a resource for America. Now certainly, that having been said, I believe that there are parts of America that need to be protected and set aside and—half for recreation, half for old growth forests to be there for all of us to enjoy. But I also believe, like Mr. Fledderman has said, that the health of the national forests are in jeopardy, and I would like to see stronger management practices on those Federal lands.
Mr. GOODLATTE. You favor a more balanced use of our national forests than we are getting today, and I agree with you.
Mr. LEVIN. Yes.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Let me ask a follow-up question, and then we will turn it over to Mrs. Clayton.
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Ms. Hayes testified that there is considerably more production than growth in the south. I am not sure if that is correct or not; you may want to comment on that. But I have a Forest Service table showing the top 10 States in planting and seeding for 1999, and Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Texas, Louisiana, South Carolina and Virginia all appear on that list. If southern States are leading the effort in planting and seeding, is there truly a reason for alarm here?
Mr. FLEDDERMAN. Well, I do not think there is a reason for alarm. Actually, it seems to me a little scarcity would be a good thing to drive the prices a little bit for the private landowners, but that is really not what is happening here.
One thing that is in those statistics is the fact that they are going for information that in a lot of cases is 5 to 10 years old, so the plantations that have been established since the early 1980's and into the 1990's still are not merchantable; so their volume is not counted, which shows up in those growth-over-terrain statistics.
The RPA assessment from the Forest Service shows that those statistics will turn around in the next 10 years, and we will again have an increase of growth over terrain. So we do not view that as being a significant problem right now.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you.
Mrs. Clayton.
Mrs. CLAYTON. Thank you. Thank you all for your testimony.
Assuming there is general agreement about whether the south has absolute or ''the'' growth, but certainly the trend is moving that way, we do recognize that most of the timber is in the hands of the private landowners, and yet, the supposed management system, flawed as it may be, is with the Federal lands. There is not a balanced effort with private landowners to provide the kind of either incentives or management strategies or access to information, and I heard a professor from our land grant college indicate that indeed he wanted to increase that research, outreach. And I gather from the State, you wanted to do that, Dr. Reid, I guess through your land grant universities.
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Each of you, would you just speak to the value of assessing the value of having available forest management assistance, standards, strategies and certifications of individuals working on private land as we are doing with public land; and as private owners, how would you access that and what value does it have?
The second question would be, as private landowners, you have mixed reasons why you own the land, I assume. Those who are tree farmers obviously want to have an adequate return on them, and have a right to, whether you do it for the building of houses or paper or whatever the industrial use; but some of you have value for other reasons, and that is aesthetic, that is, value of the right to own land where trees grow. And you also know the value that your tree farms have to clean air and clean water.
Could we assess a value to that for you as a private landowners? Anyone can respond, but let's start with the professor.
Let's talk about the value of the training to private landowners, Dr. Reid.
Mr. REID. Certainly. I would be glad to try to respond.
I certainly can't speak on behalf of the landowners themselves, but I think we see that if, in fact, we are going to provide a service to the private landowner, that this has to be, as I say, knowledge-based, that we have to have some information to transfer to the landowner.
There are a number of concerns from the educational community. One is that we realize that a number of our Federal agencies, State agencies, are going to have some major retirements of their work force, and we are concerned about providing the education and supplying those professionals that can work in the forest arena, whether that is extension agents or people that work for the State forestry agencies or the Forest Service, whoever. Certainly, we see a concern there.
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Second, we think we could better utilize our cooperative extension system that most of our institutions at the land grant institutions have, but working more closely with the State agencies and the Forest Service in particular, perhaps in RCS and others, that we need to get the information out; and I think we have to continue to address new kinds of strategies to manage smaller and smaller land parcels that appear to be the trend with a lot of these forest landowners. And whether that relates to water quality or wildlife habitat or new ways to harvest timber in an efficient way on small tracts, we think there is a need and a concern about providing that kind of research information as well as the educational outreach.
I would hope that our landowners would agree that, hopefully, they are getting good information in a timely manner, and I think it is our responsibility as land grant institutions to help provide that.
Mrs. CLAYTON. Yes.
Mr. Smith.
Mr. SMITH. I would just like to carry on a little bit from what Dr. Reid talked about.
This is a very complex issue, but I think it gets down to the fact that a guiding principle that I think virtually everybody here in this room would agree with, without question, is what is in force needs to stay in force. That is critical, and that relates to a lot of our population issues and so on, and some of the legacy program and how we do that.
I also speak representing professional foresters who are, in fact, the ones that are going to do this work on the ground and see that it is done. I also represent the nonindustrial private land owner. I have land which I own and which I manage. Even as a professional forester, in the area where my land is, I do not feel totally comfortable managing it when it comes down to plans and so on, because I am not in that area all the time, and I do not have the knowledge that people on the ground, the consultants, the State foresters and so on, do.
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The landowners that I talk to, they are across the board interested in doing the right thing. They have, almost across the board, many different values and uses for their forests, which include aesthetics, wildlife, clean water, and timber; and in most cases, all of these values and uses are pretty compatible. I think it should be our goal so that a nonindustrial private landowner has the information and has the technical ability to make informed decisions.
There is a recent study, just completed in West Virginia, for example, and reported here just a month ago, on this very topic of landowners, nonindustrial private landowners who took advantage of the stewardship bill authorized by the 1990 farm bill. Some, close to 2,000 were surveyed, and they weren't surveyed unless they had had stewardship plans in place for at least 5 years. So these are working plans, and these are written by professional foresters, some 60 percent by consultant foresters, 30-some percent by State foresters, and a few others. But the results, the authors wanted to measure the effect of this on the management.
Well, there are several things that happened. First of all, compliance with best management practices were greatly enhanced by having the knowledge and having a professional forester and having a management plan in place. By offering the landowners other uses for their land, control of noxious weeds, control of erosion into streams, the stream side zones, the ability to prepare certain sites for certain types of wildlife. Once those other objectives were placed in the plan, the landowner's ability to utilize those was far greater and was actually quantified.
One complaint, I think there was some 80 percent satisfaction with these plans, and very few people didn't like it; and a couple of things they didn't like, they wanted some follow-up work by the professional forester—after this is over, well, this is what we need to do—and they also found that those activities that weren't directly related to the timber and the sale of the timber, those were less likely to be carried out because there wasn't an incentive.
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Basically, I think most professional foresters think that providing the information and providing some type of incentive, not a gift, but some type of incentive to do those things that will help them achieve their goals, there is tremendous value in that.
Mr. GOODLATTE. We will do another round of questions.
Dr. Smith, the Society of American Foresters is recommending that we combine the Forestry Incentives Program, FIP, and the Stewardship Incentives Program, SIP, to create a new, sustainable Forestry Incentives Program. As it stands now, FIP is funded through the Department of Interior appropriations and administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service, and SIP is funded through the Department of Agriculture and administered through the Forest Service. Neither program has been funded at a high level. In fact, the SIP program was authorized at $100 million annually and not funded at all during fiscal 1999, 2000, and 2001.
Which agency does the Society recommend we administer the new program through, and do you anticipate any problems in trying to authorize and fund a new program at approximately $143 million more than the two existing programs have ever been funded at?
Mr. SMITH. To say what agency should do this probably is a decision that would be better made—whatever it is, it needs to be together. These need to be coordinated programs. The partnerships need to be established and how they will be operated. Above all, they have to be coordinated so that out on the ground, they will happen.
I think this is so critical. When we have fragmented programs, we have fragmented results. It seems natural, I think, that the farm bill is a logical place for these to occur, especially when it comes to the nonindustrial private lands; and for that reason, to have a coordinated effort under that bill makes a lot of sense, and certainly from an administration standpoint makes more sense. The partnerships that I think we have seen across this table and the alliance, the national alliance that worked together on this, the players are there and the ability and the science are there, and I think now we need to get a program that will, in fact, work on the ground and can be accountable for what they do.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. So your answer, I take it, is that you like involvement by the Department of Agriculture.
Should they take the lead on this?
Mr. SMITH. In my opinion, yes, sir.
Mr. GOODLATTE. All right. Good. And your thoughts on the funding are, you recognize we have not been successful in getting a lot of funding for this in the past, but authorize a lot and hope for the best? Is that your thinking?
Mr. SMITH. I think that no funding definitely does not work, and certainly—a level of funding such as has been suggested certainly will be a large step in the right direction.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, thank you.
Mr. Leavell, your organization can actually be helpful in this regard, because organizations of private landowners that have many thousands of members have many thousands of contacts with Members of Congress. That is, I think, the most likely way we are going to get significant funding for these programs.
Can you tell me if your organization and others like it have any plans to, on a grass-roots level, get this message across to the community at large, and, more specifically, Members of Congress who are not on this subcommittee, about the need here?
Mr. LEAVELL. Well, Mr. Chairman, absolutely. We are constantly working in outreach to our fellow landowners through the tree farm program and through other programs that exist.
And if I may just go back to some of the issues we were discussing a few minutes ago about the programs that are in place and the increase of awareness of the landowners, it is so important that the landowners be aware of what is out there; and I think to some degree, that is a problem. I know that in my experience, I have used both. I have used FIP programs, ACP programs, the WIP program which, by the way, I think is a very good program, because it does include the wildlife aspect of it.
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As a landowner, as Mrs. Clayton pointed out earlier, there are certainly diverse reasons for owning the land and for using the land and what you want to do with it. I think most all of us that are in this boat would say that we want a balanced approach. We want a balance of sound forestry, we want to see the wildlife out there, and we want it all to work.
This assistance is needed. I have fellow landowners come up to me at meetings and ask about these programs that they are either unaware that they exist or are not sure how to go forward.
I might disagree a little bit with Dr. Smith in saying about the administration of these programs. I must say that we are talking about forestry, and I would like to see more entities directly involved with forestry, the U.S. Forest Service, for instance, the State forest commissions be more involved in administering these programs.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Very good.
How important are easement programs and land trusts for forest sustainability? I will direct this to you as well, Mr. Leavell, and if anybody else wants to join in.
It seems to me if we have such programs where we have a barrier to sprawl and other uses of the forest, but continue to recognize—not to shut down the forest for the purpose that I think they exist, which is to provide for a variety of uses, including harvesting timber.
How important are those programs, and what emphasis should we put on them in our farm bill, Mr. Leavell.
Mr. LEAVELL. I am sorry, which programs, sir?
Mr. GOODLATTE. Easements and land trusts.
Mr. LEAVELL. Well, they are certainly part of the answer, Mr. Chairman; and we applaud some of these programs. But you know, quite honestly, there are some of us that may not want to tie up our land for generations yet to come, two or three generations up the road. So while I think certainly these programs have a place and they are important, they are not the only answer to conservation.
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Mr. GOODLATTE. Sure.
Does anybody else want to comment on that?
Mr. FLEDDERMAN. Yes. I think certainly easements have a place here. I get somewhat concerned about a lot of the easements that are being written these days that tend to lock up the land rather than allow active management on them; and to that end, they may be counterproductive. Perhaps a better approach might be things like the Wetlands Reserve Program, where they have a 30-year agreement to manage lands for some conservation purpose, and you get away from the perpetual idea of giving up the rights to the land and go for 30 years at a time. I think that would be a lot more palatable to landowners.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Should we, to the extent the Federal Government offers any kind of tax credits and so on for conservation easements, attempt to more tightly define them, so that they are not used for the purpose of shutting off all activity on the land, which I think is not only economically irresponsible, but also environmentally irresponsible?
Mr. FLEDDERMAN. I think that should be a consideration, certainly.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Dr. Reid, you also testified to a number of different programs and recommended increased funding for them, many of which are not currently funded at their present authorized level, and I wonder if you could prioritize those. What are the top one or two in your mind that we should put our emphasis on, given the fact that they do not always get the money funded for the programs that we authorize?
Mr. REID. Well, certainly we would strongly support the McIntire-Stennis Cooperative Forestry Program. It leverages a lot of dollars from the State and other sources in addition to those Federal dollars. It really provides an infrastructure for our institutions in terms of the kinds of talent we can have on our faculties, that those monies are very important, and we think there need to be some increases to allow us to address some of these new issues, complex issues, that nonindustrial private landowners are facing.
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So, certainly, trying to get the McIntire-Stennis up to its authorized level of half of the Forest Service research budget, somewhere around $105 million, is very important to us.
I think the reauthorization of the RREA is another major priority for us. I think this goes to that outreach component that is so needed to reach these 10 million landowners, many of whom we just do not have the contact with. As you realize, most of our member institutions are part of cooperative extension, which means we have a presence in every county in our States.
Unfortunately, of the 16,000-some-odd cooperative extension agents in this country, less than 3 percent are forestry source extension people. So we really would like to see us increase that capacity to work with the State forestry agencies and commissions, to work with State and private forestry, the Forest Service, and work with the private stakeholders and the NGOs. These are professional educators that we have out in these counties, and so the RREA program is an extremely important infrastructure type of program that I think could go a long way to our outreach.
Certainly there are other areas in the Competitive Grants Program, of course, where we think there needs to be more money directed to forestry and natural resources in addition to that money that goes to more of the commodity-related agriculture. But I would say those would be our major three priorities. Certainly we support those kinds of mechanisms that help lead to better collaborative efforts among all of the stakeholders.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Dr. Reid.
Mrs. Clayton.
Mrs. CLAYTON. Just following up on a comment you made, Mr. Reid.
I know in my county I work effectively with the Extension Service. And then when there is a little project, I have been engaged with my community 4-Hs, and they have a forest component; no one at the Extension Service is helping them, but the forest ranger is trying to.
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Then, when I try to understand the forestry in my area, I understand that the logger, who indeed is probably the most minimum person who is engaged in this, is not engaged in terms of that information. It was the ranger coming to the extension agent who proposed to me that I try to establish a curriculum at the community college system to begin to have the knowledge base that they are part of a system, both economic and ecological systems, that they can appreciate if they had the education.
Now, I do not know if your program anticipates moving to that level, but I can tell you again, landowners need assistance. In some counties where I live and serve in the district, these are people who own 20, 30 acres of land and they live somewhere else sometimes, and they want to see the land produce. So, without thinking, the first person that comes with a contract, they cut the land down.
It sounds like normal business to me, but when you have a conversation with them, they say, well, if someone had engaged me in that, I might have thought differently about that process.
My husband is an attorney and majors in land, and they regret sometimes having made that decision when they want to sell; and parts of the land, there are no trees on them.
So there is a vast need for education at the level to include not just a farmer, but other people who are using that land. And sometimes there are landowners who want to get a value from their land to pay the taxes, and if they reserve a decision, they could have had more money, because later on, when they want to develop that land around the lake, it has more value if it indeed has trees.
That is more of a statement.
Mr. REID. I like the statement. Thank you.
Mrs. CLAYTON. It provoked that statement.
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I want to ask Ms. Hayes, if I may, in your testimony, you made some recommendations about the modernization of State forestry practices. You recommend water quality funding only to the States that meet the Federal prescribed level of effectiveness.
Can you provide the subcommittee with a rough outline of what such a level of effectiveness would be? I know you cited one State, I think it was Kentucky that has a statewide strategy. Is that the kind of example, or do you have other ideas about a strategy?
Ms. HAYES. Well, I haven't prepared any particular definition of what we might expect in terms of awarding these funds. But some of the things that I note at the top of my testimony on page 6 about what we do not have—again, I am talking as an overall picture in the Southeast—statewide mandatory best management practices for forestry would be one of the elements, it seems to me, that we ought to look to to help guide the loggers that you were just referring to.
Another thing that might be an element of some kind of Federal guideline would be, again, the training or certification of loggers, the program that you are exploring, possibly at the community college level. Forward-looking States like Kentucky have initiated short courses that they require of loggers, the folks who are actually going to be out there on the ground engaging in these practices.
It seems to me that there need not be any rigid Federal definition, but if we are extending significant Federal funds, it seems that there ought to be some sort of accountability that looks at the effectiveness of the State programs and best management practices, availability of logger training; these are all of the things that might be part of a Federal standard, and I think could wind up helping the landowners very substantially in avoiding any adverse environmental consequences as well.
But again, right now, the picture in the South is that we do not as a general matter have these provisions. There are some exceptions.
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Mr. Goodlatte, I noted that Virginia has seen fit to require preharvest notification, so that technical assistance can be provided in advance of these logging operations and so that water quality laws can be enforced. These forward-looking States like Kentucky and Virginia, to me, need to be rewarded for their positive steps; and others need to be given some sort of performance guidelines, nothing that I have yet defined, but that include some of these factors.
Are we prepared for the increased logging levels that are occurring on private lands? It seems to me we have an opportunity to create some incentives here for the States to relook at some of these issues.
Mrs. CLAYTON. One final question to you. Would you suggest, or are there programs we are now subsidizing farmers with that are encouraging practices that are not ecologically sound? Are there some conflicts in objectives of programs, that we may be subsidizing programs that really may be achieving the very thing we say ecologically we should not be achieving?
Ms. HAYES. Well, I agree with the other speakers that the primary problem is that we are just not getting technical assistance and other forms of cost-share programs out there to assist the private landowner. That is the number one problem, and it is due to the lack of funding, and these people desperately need help.
Since so many people do support enhancing these landowner assistance programs, I was trying to make a suggestion, looking forward, that we, as we increase the dollars going into landowner assistance, we ought to be specific that we want them to equitably support all of the different landowner objectives, including wildlife management and uses, including timber, but not limited to timber.
So the first thing is, let's make sure that we give the full range of technical assistance that these people need.
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I do think that the one issue that I would raise is that we have already converted large amounts of our region to pine plantation, and this has often been at the expense of naturally occurring forest types, some of which have been significantly reduced, like the long leaf pine forest that once covered most of the coastal plain, like bottomland hardwood.
Pine is already projected, for example, in North Carolina to increase by another 1 million acres by 2020. So I would like these new technical assistance programs to focus more on offering landowners assistance in maintaining or restoring naturally occurring forest types, and I do not believe that we should be subsidizing the conversion of existing natural lands to pine with Federal dollars.
So that would be a caveat about increasing technical assistance.
One of the big reasons, of course, is that some of these conversions of the naturally occurring forest types involve the conversion of wetlands to pine plantations, and I think that is something that we have to be concerned about as we have continuing wetland laws; and we want to make sure that that is not further encouraged.
Mrs. CLAYTON. My final comment is about the land trust, and I am not sure—Mr. Leavell, I thought I heard you say that land trusts and easement would be part of the solution, not the solution. Did I correctly interpret that?
Mr. LEAVELL. Yes. Yes, indeed.
Mrs. CLAYTON. The reason I make that observation, I do not know what would be an appropriate way to have the land trust, but in North Carolina, we lost more forests than anyone else, I guess, in the last few years that are measured. The report came out I guess about 4 months ago.
And so much of the concern now in sustainable growth in communities, both urban and rural, is about how do we maintain that balance. And one of the solutions, one of the offerings of solutions, was to begin to look at land trusts or giving tax incentives, giving landowners their development rights and defer it, meaning that they wouldn't lose their right if they wanted to later on.
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Do you have other suggestions as to how we encourage your farmers to keep their land? They may not be making as much money on the land selling the wood, and they are tempted, or with the competing economic issue, do I sell it to the developer or—because I can get more money? But if there is a tax incentive that gives them the developmental rights there, they can benefit through perhaps a tax structure.
Do you have other ideas or comments on that?
Mr. LEAVELL. Well, just to say that, again, we do support the Forest Legacy Program and we do urge that it be fully funded. We think these are wonderful incentives. But again, the problem of tying up land for generations is something that is a hard pill sometimes for a landowner to swallow.
I would certainly applaud Mr. Fledderman's suggestion that some of these programs have year limits, like 30 years, and allow future generations to make decisions on their own as to what they prefer to do with the land.
But I do think that those types of tax incentives that are given in those programs are certainly significant; they certainly can make a difference for a landowner to be able to hold on to their land. I think they are very important.
If I may also say, since it appears that we might be coming to a conclusion here, these are programs that we, I think, so desperately need to continue and to expand for the private landowners. The American tree farm system consisting of 65,000 landowners is a very powerful organization, and as I mentioned in my earlier testimony, I think there is a lot to be said for that peer-to-peer type of communication and type of connection.
While we are already, and have been for many, many years now, doing that type of outreach, we stand poised, with the possibility of some new programs that we think are better designed, to stand behind them and put the full force of tree farming in action.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you, Mrs. Clayton. That has prompted a couple of more questions.
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I wonder if any members of the panel have any comment of Ms. Hayes' expression of concern about the proliferation of pine plantations. Is that a good or a bad thing?
Dr. Smith?
Mr. SMITH. There is a context here that needs to be, I think, brought out. For the most part, everything in, all the pine plantations historically were in agricultural land, or a large percentage of them at one point, and have reverted back to pine of different types naturally and, in some cases, plantations.
But virtually throughout the South, it was all agricultural land at one time, except probably prior to—Native Americans, of course, burned these lands, and that is how the long leaf pine became well established prior to European settlement. So to say that we are going to have natural forests, I am not sure that is a reality. We can have succession natural forests that will come on after agricultural land, and if you don't replant the pine, a lot of it will go to hardwood. So there are some ecological ideas that we need to look at carefully here.
I think for a long time, from a scientific standpoint, the ability to have long leaf pine plantations because of the difficulty of planting it and getting it to survive, which a lot has been overcome through good research and science. We have made some progress, and I believe that actually the long leaf pine ecosystems are, in fact, growing at this point; and at least we have the capability to do that on some of these lands.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Thank you.
Mr. Larson, you get the last question.
In your testimony, you recommended we consider authorizing a new program entitled the Sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative. You also recommended Congress reauthorize and expand the existing Renewable Resources Extension Act, two programs that appear to be quite similar. I wonder if you could tell us what the similarities and differences are between the two programs and why we need two rather than simply enhance the one?
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Mr. LARSON. No, I cannot. I do not know enough detail about that to describe those differences, but the principal point we want to make is that any of the information and education programs is what we strongly endorse. We would second almost all of the things that Mr. Reid has suggested about the value of information and education and the package that it comes in, that is, up to the hashing out through this farm bill.
Mr. GOODLATTE. OK.
Mr. LARSON. I would like to make one follow-up comment, if I could.
Previously, in your very beginning questions, you talked about the transfer of cutting pressure to the South from the West and asked whether that was a good thing or not. Yes, landowners saw that as a very good thing. Price provides the best incentive to practice good forestry.
What we saw, what consultants saw when prices went up was landowners then had additional funds that they were willing to reinvest in the property, not just in planting trees, but in all sorts of environmental improvements. So the prices rise and the transfer—now, it will be balanced out, if demand gets too high and they will respond and grow more trees. When the price goes down, they stop reinvesting.
Mr. GOODLATTE. Well, I certainly want landowners to get a premium price for their trees, and lack of supply is certainly one way to accomplish that. But I see two competing problems. One is that when the price gets high, the next place we go to—and it is happening right now—is an increase, a substantial increase in imports from other countries, which in some respects certainly is part of free and fair trade and competition, but by the same token, if it is subsidizing another country, and they are not following sound environmental practices—which is an issue for another day's debate—that is not a good policy.
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Second, I think it is not a good policy to shut off the vast majority of the areas of our national lands from an environmental standpoint, albeit increased production, and I do not say we are going to see dramatic increased production there any time soon, but that would have some effect on the price of timber coming off of private lands.
So it is a balance we need to achieve not only in the management of the land itself, but also in the management of the policy, which treats the private landowners very fairly and gives them every incentive to properly manage their land from both an economic and an environmental standpoint.
But we need to take the same approach with our Federal land, and I fear we are not.
I thank you all.
Mrs. Clayton, any other questions?
Mrs. CLAYTON. No.
Mr. GOODLATTE. I thank you all. It has been an excellent panel, great contributions, a great foundation for our work on this farm bill. Again, I thank you for your participation. I have some magic language I need to read here at the end.
The Chair would seek unanimous consent to allow the record of today's hearing to remain open for 10 days to receive additional material and supplementary written responses from witnesses to any question posed by a member of the panel. Without objection, it is so ordered.
This hearing of the Subcommittee on Department Operations, Oversight, Nutrition and Forestry is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned, subject tothe call of the Chiar.]
[Material submitted for inclusion in the record follows:]
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Statement of David Smith
Mr. Chairman, my name is David Smith, and I thank you for the opportunity to share our views with you today. I come before you to discuss an underutilized potential resource to achieve sustainability in this nation; namely non-industrial private forest landowners. The Society of American foresters believes that non-industrial private forest (NIPF) landowners are absolutely essential to the sustainability of our Nation's forests, and that there are significant opportunities to help them realize their potential.
NIPF landowners own approximately 363 million of the Nation's 747 million acres of forestland, accounting for almost half of the Nation's forests. That is larger than two times the size of the state of Texas. These forests provide important public benefits like wildlife habitat, clean water, recreational opportunities, open space, and other environmental benefits. They also provide important forest products. In fact, NIPF lands provided almost 60 percent of the Nation's timber harvest in 1996, and as timber harvest on the national forests continues to decline, the number of private landowners harvesting timber continues to grow. However, the most optimistic studies show that only ten percent of NIPF landowners consult a professional forest prior to harvest, the most pessimistic put the figure at 5 percent. Landowners are making important business transactions that affect their bottom line, and the Public's environmental bottom line without using professional advice.
Despite their importance, these lands are the least intensively managed of any forest ownership category in the nation. On much of this land a timber sale is an unusual event in the owner's life; often in response to a personal situation such as retirement or other financial needs. If a landowner has a sound management plan, unusual events can usually be provided for within the context of that plan. Management plans enhance the investment in forestland, and can help the landowner achieve the full potential of that forest resource when they need it. Forest management is a long-term commitment that takes careful planning. As we have demonstrated, the vast majority of timber sales are without benefit of professional advice; with no plan for maintaining or regenerating a sustainable forest following harvest; and with little recognition of the environmental impacts of these activities. NIPF landowners need technical advice, and they are not even aware of this need.
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The good news is that professional foresters have done an excellent job reaching large landowners. Almost 40 percent of the NIPF acres in this country have a forest management plan written by a professional forester. In many cases private landowners with large holdings seek professional advice. These ownerships have much more at stake both financially and environmentally and are much easier for foresters to identify. This is not to say that foresters do not want to seek out landowners with smaller acreage. There are 9.9 million NIPF landowners in the United States, and that number continues to grow. There are 17,500 members of the Society of American Foresters. Clearly we are out numbered and agencies are severely under-funded.
Providing landowners with education, technical assistance and financial incentives works. For example a recent study in the state of West Virginia shows that Forest Stewardship Plans (authorized under the farm bill) are effective in influencing landowners. Landowners implement activities, such as timber harvesting, stand improvement, grapevine removal, and wildlife habitat improvement, more often when prescribed in stewardship plans. Research also shows a strong positive association between forester involvement in timber sales and compliance with West Virginia's Best Management Practices. However, landowners expressed dissatisfaction with the Forest Stewardship Program, because they want more frequent visits from foresters; and more funding for implementing noncommercial forest stewardship activities. Studies indicate that landowners with Forest Stewardship Plans are three times more likely to implement those plans if they receive financial incentives or additional technical assistance. Landowners receiving this assistance are also more likely to manage their forests for timber, wildlife and water quality, and are more likely to adopt multiple resource management practices, and to try practices that are new to them. If landowners know what is possible with their forests, and can find the funds to implement a forester's advice, they want to do the right thing for the land. We just need to make those opportunities available.
In 1996, timber products were the 2nd highest valued agriculture crop in the U.S. at $22.5 billion. Only corn was bigger at $25.1 billion. Yet forestry programs receive less than one-half of one percent of all commodity support from the Federal Government. Private sector and state efforts have picked up some of the shortfall in resources, but unmet need is large. We are not saying that forestry is more important than other agriculture commodities, all are critical to the future of this nation, but we hope the Federal Government will increase the resources available to NIPF landowners through the next farm bill.
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Since authorization of the forestry provisions of the farm bill in 1990, there have been significant changes in public and private attitudes on forest management including the promotion of ''sustainable'' forestry, forest certification and the dramatic shift in domestic supplies and international competition. State forestry agencies and commissions are being asked or mandated to take on greater environmental responsibilities and demonstrate progress in forest resource management, and financial incentives to convert forests to subdivisions and other developments are ever increasing.
Pressure to convert forests to development is ever increasing, and if we are to achieve sustainable forests, we must ensure that forests remain forested. The Federal Government can use effective, nonregulatory tools for maintaining a working forest land base, preserving environmental values, and protecting a community from development pressure. There are private sector initiatives addressing some of these issues, but the private sector cannot do this job alone. There are Federal taxes the government should modify to achieve some of these objectives, but changes in the tax code cannot do this job alone. The Federal Government must provide financial assistance to landowners to solve at least part of this problem, as the Federal Government has significant goals and regulatory programs affecting forest landowners such as the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act, and other important environmental laws. These public sector efforts should dovetail with private and state efforts as well. Additionally, forest issues are not only national but global, and the Federal Government must act to ensure that non-industrial private forest landowners have access to global markets and have the type of forest resources that have value in those markets.
The SAF is proposing two major initiatives and changes to existing Federal conservation programs in order to improve the sustainability of the Nation's forests. We generated these ideas in strong partnership with the National Council on Private Forests, a collection of organizations interested in private forest resources.
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The Sustainable Forestry Incentives Program
The Forestry Incentives Program (FIP) (Section 1214) and the Stewardship Incentives Program (SIP) (Section 1216)—FIP and SIP were well intentioned and designed programs. They have suffered from a lack of funding and support. We recommend a new program to enhance the ideas and concepts the authors intended for FIP and SIP, and focus this program on ensuring sustainable forestry. The Sustainable Forestry Incentives Program would provide Federal funding to implement conservation practices that benefit the public. The program must be complementary to efforts to provide educational outreach on sustainable forestry, and offer technical assistance to landowners. The program would fund a broad array of conservation practices that landowners typically do not implement due to a lack of financial resources. These practices may include, but shall not be limited to; sustainable timber production; agroforestry practices such as shelterbelts and windbreaks; forest wetland and riparian area management; water quality and watershed protection and management; energy conservation and carbon sequestration; wildlife habitat enhancement; invasive species management; forest fire risk reduction and recovery; and forest management planning. State stewardship committees in collaboration with the state forestry agencies will determine practices eligible for Federal funding, and the state forestry agencies will implement the program. The key differences from past forestry cost share programs and this new program will be a commitment to sustainability, and an integrated delivery mechanism combining financial assistance, technical assistance and educational outreach to implement these conservation practices. The program should be funded through mandatory funding at a level of $150 million.
Sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative
Research studies show that only ten percent of landowners receive professional forestry advice prior to harvest. Most landowners have a range of objectives, with timber production usually subordinate to other considerations such as recreation and aesthetics. Many landowners do not have management plans in place, and when they decide to harvest they often receive less value for their timber than if they had advice from a professional forester. Frequent results from unplanned harvests include land that could have been left in better condition, values other than timber may be significantly diminished, and reduced environmental compliance. Many of these problems are avoided when landowners receive professional forestry advice.
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SAF proposes a new program entitled the Sustainable Forestry Outreach Initiative to conduct a targeted campaign to educate forest landowners about:
the value and benefits of practicing sustainable forestry;
the importance of professional forestry advice in achieving their sustainable forestry objectives;
the variety of public and private sector resources available to assist them in planning for and practicing sustainable forestry.
The outreach effort would be funded through USDA CREES (Extension) and implemented with the assistance of the SAF, members of the SAF, the State Foresters, and University partners. A major thrust of the Initiative would be the reauthorization and expansion of the Renewable Resources Extension Act (RREA). RREA addresses critical forestry and related natural resources extension and stewardship needs in states, and also the critical issues of forest management for productivity and environmental quality on non-Federal lands. The SAF supports this program, which helps in communicating ecologically sound technical advice to landowners, foresters, and loggers. This advice improves the productivity, management and long-term sustainability of nonindustrial private forests. The program funds extension efforts that are a model of partnership between the USDA and State Universities and Land Grant Colleges. We know there are substantial unmet needs of non-industrial private forest landowners, and RREA is one piece of the solution. We ask Congress to reauthorize and expand the program.
A second major emphasis will be to enable non-governmental organizations to delivery forestry advice and expertise.
The goal would be to reach a substantial number of the 4.1 million individuals and families who own forested tracts larger than 10 acres. There will be specific emphasis on peer to peer learning and outreach. Additionally, the effort would promote the value of professional forestry advice, and the favorable economic and environmental results associated with that advice.
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We believe the program's value would lie in its targeted approach to outreach, and delivery mechanism of extension foresters, university partners and professional foresters. A national publication would provide information from a broad array of public and private sector programs available for landowners interested in sustainable forestry. The effort will allow landowners to explore opportunities to improve the condition of their land and improve the value of their property and the proceeds of their management, provide public benefits via improved forest lands, all at minimal cost to the government because we are largely using private sector dollars and programs to get the work done.
SAF supports a program authorization of $45 million per year to support the Initiative.
SAF recommends that the Secretary appoint an advisory body comprising Federal and state agencies as well as other stakeholders including forest landowners, foresters, conservation groups and the academic community. This body will advise the Secretary on outreach objectives, programs and implementation, cooperation and coordination among agencies and other stakeholders, and assessment of impacts.
Enhancing Existing Authorities
There are significant opportunities to meet SAF long and short-term goals through modifying or enhancing existing authorities.
The Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act of 1978 (CFAA) is the base legislation for a variety of forestry related programs authorized and funded, in part, by the Federal Government. The 1990 Food, Agriculture, Conservation and Trade Act (the farm bill) added a Title XII, called the Forest Stewardship Assistance Act (Congress amended the CFAA with title XII.) Congress authorized programs like the Forest Stewardship Program, Forestry Incentives Program, Stewardship Incentives Program, Forest Legacy Program, and others through these titles.
Overall, the 2002 farm bill conservation title should include sustainable forestry as a program objective, equal with wildlife habitat and other objectives. SAF asks that Congress rename Title XII as the Sustainable Cooperative Forestry Assistance Act. This title change will reflect the forestry community's efforts to ensure that sustainable forestry is practiced everywhere in the United States. Additionally, several of the programs we are advocating are truly focused on sustainability, and ensuring forests stay forested.
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The SAF believes that several of these programs are operating effectively, and that others need modification.
Forest Stewardship Program (Section 1215)—The program is functioning extremely well, providing technical forestry advice to 180,000 landowners covering 22 million acres of forest in the ten years since its inception. We believe Congress should build in flexibility in implementing the program and support substantial increases in appropriations. Congress should modify the Forest Stewardship Program to express two main goals: building the capacity of state and local agencies to assist forest landowners in managing their forests sustainably, and allow programmatic delivery of technical assistance to meet the requirements of Federal mandates.
Forest Legacy Program (Section 1217)—We support the continuation of the Forest Legacy Program. The Legacy Program is achieving its objectives with excellent results. The only suggestion we might offer is to raise the spending authority for the program, as new states continue to complete assessments and request Federal funding.
Urban and Community Forestry Assistance (Section 1219)—We support the continuation of Urban and Community Forestry Assistance as it is an effective program and connects urban residents to the forested environment in addition to enhancing the urban environment with beneficial forest cover.
Wildlife Habitat Incentives Program (WHIP) (Title III—Miscellaneous Conservation Provisions of the 1996 farm bill)— Working through state technical committees, WHIP is designed to help landowners improve wildlife habitat. The program provides cost-share funding to develop habitat for upland wildlife, endangered species, fisheries, and other wildlife. SAF would like to see more funding reach non-industrial forest landowners, and we would like to see those funds focused on developing habitat conservation plans.
Conservation Reserve Program (CRP)—It is important to SAF that CRP funds be invested in conservation practices that have the potential to last beyond the 10-year contract period. We believe several changes that involve increasing incentives for tree planting, and the use of long-term easements could enhance the public benefits of the CRP program.
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Environmental Quality Incentives Program (EQIP)—EQIP is another program that could benefit from an enhanced commitment to using trees and forests to meet its objectives.
Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP)—This program continues to show promise in producing public benefits from private lands. There will be a need for continued investment, and expansion of the program to lands that are predominately forested. All resource lands should be eligible, not just those with a cropping history.
Forestry Research focused on non-Federal lands
We support the continuation and expansion of forestry related research programs, and stress the important role outreach and research play in sustainable forestry.
THE COOPERATIVE FORESTRY (MCINTIRE-STENNIS) RESEARCH PROGRAM
The Cooperative Forestry (McIntire-Stennis) Research Program supports long-term research on forestry and wood fiber conducted by the Nation's public universities. University-based research is an important part of the collaborative forestry research effort involving Federal, state, and private sector scientists. McIntire-Stennis research is critical to the development of new information and technologies that increase not only the efficiency and productivity of fore