Traditional Forestry in Southwestern Virginia

Forest management is increasingly driven by more than the procurement needs of local mills buying timber from landowners motivated by the short term needs for quick cash. Landowners increasingly want to enjoy aesthetics, wildlife habitat, real estate investment, cultural assets, special areas, recreation development, and other opportunities. Equipment to do this work is available, field-proven, and maintainable with locally available parts. What is lacking in the region is the business infrastructure to make this type of management widely available and thus affordable. Unintended and undesired consequences are emerging as a result:

• Forestland is being taken out of timber production as it gets fragmented into smaller parcels where conventional equipment and practices are ill-suited and unprofitable.
• Previously exploited and poorly managed forest become overgrown in invasive species and poor quality, low value trees.
• The negative perception of forest management forces landowners to forego management because they fear "unacceptable ugliness or worse".
• Income generation from timber forfeit, jobs are lost, taxes unpaid, and landowners must underwrite the expense of owning an unproductive asset, perhaps accelerating decisions to subdivide for real estate profits.
• If these forests are eventually harvested, profits will be lower because restorative and value enhancing management will not have occurred at critical stages.
• Risk of insects, disease, and fire increase as forest health declines
• Ecosystem services such as clean air, clean water, attractive views, carbon sequestration also may be degraded as forest health declines.

Forest landcare is an attempt to address these concerns. It offers forest owners the opportunity to achieve diverse objectives, increase the long term value of the remaining timber, and offset management costs by selling forest products. The forest landcare process typically follows several steps:

• A management plan is written under supervision of a professional forester.
• Management techniques minimize damage to trees, soil, and water.
• Harvested trees get sorted for sale or processing to maximize utilization and profitability and minimize transportation costs.
• Some logs may be cut into lumber on-site with a portable mill, further reducing transportation costs and increasing nutrient recycling.
• Unused portions of the tree may be chipped and returned to the forest as soil building biomass, or left for the landowner's use or sale.
• Invasive plants and unhealthy or undesired trees are then felled to restore long term forest health, profitability, habitat, water quality, and soil productivity.
• Planting, erosion control, and other best management practices are implemented.
• Monitoring insures sustainability and satisfaction of landowner management goals.

The nurturing and spreading of forest landcare businesses provides one piece to the puzzle of forest sustainability in the Appalachians. Forest health gets restored and maintained, forest management becomes socially accepted and expected, and keeping forests as forest remains affordable.