Wildland_Firefighter
The Judge
Outlook on forest in America
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...37abf4-7e4b-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html
How many acres is your area losing its forest due to agriculture or housing development?
I know in my area we have lost a good chunk of acreage of forest for mostly agricultural purposes. These past couple of months were dry and allowed many places to get logged and cleared up for fields. Ive seen so many places which stunned me that farmers are clearing up for fields. These places were usually swampy or generally wet in the regular season. They are ditching like crazy too.
Now it's wet and lots of these places they cleared are wet. But im wondering about forestry's future. I work in the Forestry industry and we own timberland.
I know lots of people say timber isn't a yearly income (could be if you have the acreage or pine straw production) thus is why they clear their timber. Then on top of that uncle Sam taxes you nearly all of the money that you receive to where it's not worth having timber.
Another thing is forest owners can't afford forest insurance thus if they lose the timber to a wildfire or bugs then it is on them. Farmers on the other hand can afford insurance on their crops (some just insurance farm) but people will use the "we can't eat trees"....but you sure can't breathe or have clean water without them either.
What do yall think? Some folks say it's a cycle between people switching farm land to woods then woods back to farm land but I think it's gotten way out of hand.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...37abf4-7e4b-11e4-81fd-8c4814dfa9d7_story.html
How many acres is your area losing its forest due to agriculture or housing development?
I know in my area we have lost a good chunk of acreage of forest for mostly agricultural purposes. These past couple of months were dry and allowed many places to get logged and cleared up for fields. Ive seen so many places which stunned me that farmers are clearing up for fields. These places were usually swampy or generally wet in the regular season. They are ditching like crazy too.
Now it's wet and lots of these places they cleared are wet. But im wondering about forestry's future. I work in the Forestry industry and we own timberland.
I know lots of people say timber isn't a yearly income (could be if you have the acreage or pine straw production) thus is why they clear their timber. Then on top of that uncle Sam taxes you nearly all of the money that you receive to where it's not worth having timber.
Another thing is forest owners can't afford forest insurance thus if they lose the timber to a wildfire or bugs then it is on them. Farmers on the other hand can afford insurance on their crops (some just insurance farm) but people will use the "we can't eat trees"....but you sure can't breathe or have clean water without them either.
What do yall think? Some folks say it's a cycle between people switching farm land to woods then woods back to farm land but I think it's gotten way out of hand.