(Not) Counting Trees

On Monday, 22 April, The Council on Forestry will discuss a series of sub-committee recommendations that might form the basis of legislative changes. The sub-committee's report is available here.

(copied from Web of Science alert)

Senate Bill 161 passed unanimously out of the Senate Agriculture, Forestry, and Higher Education Committee on Thursday.

Further action or, at least, enactment, though, is unlikely in this legislative session. The session is supposed to end on March 15 and no action on the Assembly version of the bill is planned (at least at this point).

Yesterday, I presented at the Wisconsin Cooperating Foresters Statewide Meeting in Stevens Point. In addition to the more extensive materials posted yesterday, here is a pdf of my presentation.

The meeting is co-sponsored by the WNDR-Forestry and Wisconsin Consulting Foresters.

I will be presenting at the Statewide Cooperating Foresters Meeting tomorrow in Stevens Point on the proposed changes to the MFL. Here are some addtional resources.

LEGISLATIVE

Senate Bill 161* -- updated as bill proceeds

Assembly Bill 402* -- updated as bill proceeds

As noted previously, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry, and Higher Education met yesterday. A sprained ankle prevented me providing oral testimony, but I did submit some thoughts in writing (pdf).

Next week, the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Forestry, and Higher Education will hold a public hearing on Senate Bill 161. This bill reflects the work of the Le

Made an error in my description of woodlands and landowners owning 10 or more acres on my recent post: Extent of Woodland Leasing in Wisconsin: Insights from a recent landowner survey. This has been corrected. My apologies.

The Assembly version of the proposed changes to the MFL is AB402, and has been assigned to the Assembly Forestry Committee. You can track its progress here or by RSS.

Key Findings

• Leasing occurs on 7-9% of private woodlands.
• 6.0% of landowners not enrolled in the Managed Forest Law (MFL) in a 2010 survey reported leasing land for activities such as hunting.
• Larger parcels are leased more frequently reflecting greater economic motivations for landownership.
• Demographically, those who lease have slightly higher educational attainment, but are otherwise similar.

Introduction