Sprawl and Family Forests.

Incentives and partnerships can help so-called "Mom and Pop foresters" fight irresponsible development

Look out across the pristine family operations that account for nearly 50 percent of all privately owned woodlands, and you're likely to scoff that a cry of alarm over the state of family-owned forestland is nothing more than an overreaction. Once you read Jane Braxton Little's story on page 30, it's likely you'll think again.

The pressures of modern life are nowhere more apparent than in the balance sheets and worry lines so prevalent among tree farmers, who represent some of our best land stewards. Cookie-cutter regulations that keep the forest industry in check were never intended for operations the size of most family forests. And yet in some places the rules are the same, thwarting good management practices and frustrating owners. Taxes have spiraled out of control, threatening to swamp already-taut operations.

The good news? Many folks persevere, focused on the legacy they want to leave their children or on preserving long-term ecological benefits they know their forests provide.

The commitment of these so-called "mom and pop foresters" is more important than you may realize. Recent studies suggest that more and more people want to escape the city and own a piece of the woods. And that means privately owned tracts are getting progressively smaller, forcing us to both change the way we look at the landscape and to think about providing incentives for good stewardship and land retention.

Development is the biggest threat facing these forests, and this issue's focus is actually an extension of AMERICAN FORESTS' recently launched sprawl campaign. Losing these mom and pop forests would mean more than just a change in the way our land-scape appears. Private forests offer an array of heretofore unrecognized ecological services and values that benefit the public. The challenge is to come up with policy tools that reflect these values and provide incentives to protect this environmentally important forestland.

At our 1999 National Urban Forest Conference last August AMERICN FORESTS outlined a 5-step plan to help curb sprawl through tree-smart development. Sprawl players such as Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman spoke at the conference, which focused on "Building Cities of Green."

Afterwards, we took our sprawl message on the road, planting trees and extolling their benefits at stops in six major cities: New York, San Francisco, Vancouver, Chicago, Atlanta, and Seattle. The stop in New York was especially noteworthy since it included the planting of the 10 millionth tree in AMERICAN FORESTS' Global ReLeaf Forests program--the halfway point to our goal of 20 million trees for the new millennium.

Sprawl is also threatening Louisiana black bear, the prototype for the modern-day teddy bear. What's being done to protect it makes an interesting story as told by Janine Guglielmino on page 36. In the months ahead, we'll bring you lots of examples of how trees ward off the negative effects of sprawl--and the many ways they're harmed by it.

And as you begin to think about your New Year's resolutions for the new millennium, we hope you'll continue your dedication to forest conservation through AMERICAN FORESTS. While the year 2000 is a new millennium, the dawn of the 21st century also marks the beginning of AMERICAN FORESTS' third century of influence on forest conservation. We count on you to be with us as we move forest conservation to a new level. AF