Advisory Committee on Chip Mills-Revised Draft Final Report-III Action Areas

Governor's Advisory Committee on Chip Mills

Revised Draft Final Report

III. ACTION AREAS

The subjects discussed within the Thematic Background form the basis for the recommendations which follow with respect to the issues raised by the arrival of high-capacity chip mills in Missouri. The Governor's Advisory Committee on Chip Mills regards these subjects as critical ingredients to the long-term sustainability of Missouri's forests and to the economic, social and cultural well-being of its citizens. In structuring this section on potential actions, policies and programs, several of the subjects discussed in Part II -- Sustainable Timberland Resource Base, Sustainably Managed Forests, and Landowner Rights and Responsibilities -- are not addressed as separate decision areas here. Rather, they are considered as elements within three central thematic subjects towards which committee actions may be directed: Environmental Sustainability; Education, Training, and Professional Management; and Economic and Social Impacts. Moreover, since policy choices are invariably influenced by questions of funding and financial viability, a fourth topic -- Financial Support -- has been added to the above . The committee discussed a wide range of action, policy, and program options under each of these four themes. The recommendations supported by a majority of the committee are presented here. For those interested in all of the recommendations that were considered and the roll call vote on each, these may be found in Appendix C.

Outline of Section

Environmental Sustainability
Education, Training and Professional Management
Sustainable Economic and Social Impacts
Financial Support

1. ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY

The Committee agrees that sustainability of all forest resources is critical and can be influenced for better or worse by the kinds of practices conducted on forest lands in the state. This inherently involves sustaining the unique geological underpinning and rich heritage of biodiversity of Missouri forests. A sustainable environment encompasses both the living and non-living elements of forest ecosystems. The living components include diverse and viable wildlife populations, trees of mixed species and ages, and contiguous blocks of forested landscapes. Sustaining such an environment also requires minimizing soil loss, ensuring the integrity of watersheds, and safeguarding clear streams and springs.

The Committee supports education and training in sustainable forest management for landowners and all segments of the forest products industry. A corollary of the above is that when managing for timber production, all harvests should be conducted in a way that minimizes soil loss and deterioration of water quality. This lends credence to the goal of having loggers trained in best management practices and landowners educated in sustainable forest management.

In the Thematic Background, it was frequently noted that the impacts of high capacity chip mills on the environmental sustainability of Missouri's natural landscape will be manifest in the kinds of harvesting practices forestland owners adopt in supplying timber to the mills. The Committee considered a number of areas in which possible outcomes of this process would likely have implications for environmental sustainability.

Recommendations

Sustainable Forest Resources Act and Forest Resources Council

Update State Forestry Law to include new incentives intended to increase participation in the program and ensure long-term forest resource sustainability for Missouri. Best Management Practices shall be utilized as a general requirement for any forest landowner receiving assistance under such program.
A Forest Resource Council should be established. The Council would serve at least four roles:

Foster collaboration and provide an ongoing public forum among landowners, loggers, wood-based industries, environmental interests, the tourism industry, public agencies and others with a vital vested interest in the well-being of Missouri's forest resource.
Advise the governor and state, county and local governments on sustainable forest resource policies and practices.
Coordinate priority forestry research efforts in the state and develop and implement initiatives in sustainable forest management.
Appointments shall be submitted by the groups involved and confirmed by the Senate, assigned to the Department of Conservation for administrative support.

Ensuring Best Management Practices (BMPs)

An interagency task force of the Departments of Conservation, Natural Resources and Agriculture; a representative of industry, an environmental organization, and professional forestry organization; and the School of Forestry and Natural Resources, University of Missouri, should be created to evaluate the present definition of "Best Management Practices" by January 1, 2002.
It is the interest of the state of Missouri that owners of forest lands use Best Management Practices (BMP) based on "Missouri Watershed Protection Practices" published by the Missouri Department of Conservation with Missouri's Department of Natural Resources and other agencies, to protect soil and water resources for current and future generations of Missourians.

It is the purpose of this Act to include that BMP will be carried out within the sensitive portions of riparian areas and where the forest cover is to be greatly reduced on sizable areas of land to protect water quality, especially in the karst topography of the Ozark Region where soils are inherently low in fertility and the landscape is more dissected.

The use of best management practices is voluntary except when a landowner, trustee, timber deed holder or assignee plans to remove 50% or more of the forest cover (measured by trees 5.0 inches in diameter at breast height, 4.5 feet in height) on more than 40 contiguous acres of forest land within one year within the Ozark Regions.

A Missouri Timber Harvest Permit must be obtained in advance for those situations where BMPs are required under the above paragraph. Permits to be issued by the Missouri Department of Conservation. The issued permit grants access to the Department for the sole purpose of inspecting the permitted area(s).

Information Base

Develop a database about forest resources in Missouri similar to what is presently done for agriculture in the Census of Agriculture. The database needs to include:

Forest land ownership
An annual inventory and survey of forest resources and use.

Institute a long term research effort, focused in the chip mill sourcing zones utilizing remote sensing, to investigate harvest site, location, methodology and use of Best Management Practices. The long-term research effort should consider:

An annual inventory intensive enough to detect resource changes in a short time period.
Can technology detect changes in size class distribution?
Can remote sensing be used to help determine the impacts of forest fragmentation?

The Committee supports a system of voluntary harvest pre-notification to the Missouri Department of Conservation of commercial timber harvests as a means to disseminate forest management information to landowners and to aid in the collection of information on extent and type of timber harvests, type of forest management used, and the use of Best Management Practices on timber harvests on private land.
Legislation should be passed to establish authority for determining the characteristics of the timber used by high capacity chip mills.

Other

Companies should be encouraged to use the principles of the Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI) or other certification programs on all forestlands and participate in a verification process.
Responsible parties should be fined based on the environmental degradation their actions have caused. The resulting fund would then be used for a combination of education, incentives, regulation and monitoring.

2. EDUCATION, TRAINING AND PROFESSIONAL MANAGEMENT

The Committee strongly agreed that education, training and professional management is critical to the long-term sustainability of Missouri forests. The Committee would like to have every forest land owner and mill operator educated in sustainable forest management, all timber harvests conducted in accord with best management practices (BMPs), and all loggers professionally trained. This in turn may contribute to enhanced public understanding of and respect for Missouri's forests and their management.

Recommendations

Logger Training

Support the existing Statewide Certification Training Program for Loggers and create incentives for voluntary logger certification and encourage the use of such trained loggers in timber harvesting and maintain a list of such certified loggers.
Encourage the formation of a coalition of forest landowners that would agree to use only trained loggers and implement sustainable forestry principles.

Professional Foresters

Establish a Professional Registry Board for professional licensed foresters to practice in Missouri.

Landowner Education

Conduct a comprehensive evaluation of all existing forest landowner education programs in Missouri.
The University of Missouri Outreach and Extension in conjunction with MDC foresters offer silviculture courses throughout the state in an intensive educational drive for five years.
Expand the Forest Cropland or Stewardship programs already in place and aggressively market them to enroll landowners in the programs.
Establish working group of the Departments of Agriculture, Conservation, Natural Resources and Economic Development and University Extension to provide support to any future Missouri Forest Resource Council and to:

Produce an informational campaign on the income possibilities from managing timber land properly for traditional products (sawtimber, veneer, posts, pulpwood, firewood, etc.) special forest products (burls, vines, pollen, seed, unique wood, etc.), and recreation products such as hunt-lease, group and other forms of forest recreation.
The working group should enter into a working agreement that ensures sharing of information regarding what each agency is doing in education in forestry.
Develop and provide oversight of the content of a landowner's educational program.
Deliver the educational program as a collaborative effort of the above organizations, but with the University of Missouri Outreach and Extension acting as the lead educational agency.

Develop seminars to assist landowners in bidding and selling their standing timber.
Institute a high intensity forest landowner education effort in the chip mill sourcing zones and include an evaluation of effectiveness.
Establish an evaluation project to analyze forest landowner educational efforts. The evaluation is to be conducted by the Missouri Department of Conservation.

3. SUSTAINABLE ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL IMPACT

The Committee would like to see a healthy forest-based economy that would be sustained through time and support a forest resource that would provide a wide range of amenities and financial returns to both forestland owners and all Missouri citizens. Included in this vision are expanding employment opportunities in the forest products industry, with much of Missouri's forest resources being processed in the State, and a healthy and growing tourist industry in the Missouri Ozarks. It is important that forestland owners have the economic incentives and market opportunities to use sustainable management.

Recommendations

Enhance the marketing efforts by the Departments of Agriculture and Economic Development to assist in the development of value-added forest products and export trade.
Endorse the grant program for marketing and feasibility studies (HB 888) which could provide assistance for wood product companies to develop value-added agricultural business concepts that:

Lead to and result in development, processing and marketing of new or expanded uses or technologies for agricultural products; and
Foster agricultural economic development in Missouri's rural communities.

Encourage the expansion of the research and development of alternative fiber sources for paper. The project would identify crops with high potential and create high yield varieties of alternative sources of raw materials.
Encourage and support the development of forestry cooperatives for such things as marketing, management, export development and other business activities.
Expand policies that encourage the paper manufacturing industry to increase the use of recovered paper and expand programs that require or promote the recovery of waste paper.
Institute strategies that reduces the demand for virgin wood pulp, including promoting greater acceptance by the public and private sectors of lower grade paper stock in publications.
The Missouri Department of Economic Development should make special efforts, working cooperatively with other agencies, to help small to mid-sized value-added forest products companies to locate or expand in Missouri.
The Committee endorses the idea of focusing incentives on those firms and industry segments that through expansion or diversification can provide substantial new jobs (in the aggregate) as well as enhance the value-adding process to primary timber products.
Have a reward and/or incentive to be given at the annual Governor's Economic Development Conference to a company demonstrating outstanding performance in wood waste recovery.

D. FINANCIAL SUPPORT

The potential for financing educational programs, incentives, and support of landowners who use sustainable management and BMPs received considerable attention from the Committee.

Recommendations

Encourage producers to develop a statewide check-off program on timber sales modeled after the check-off program for other agricultural commodities. The revenue generated would be used to support a variety of programs, including research, marketing initiatives, value-added wood products and landowner and public education.
Consider use of the revenues derived from the soil conservation portion of the Missouri Parks and Soils Sales Tax to sustain soil productivity for sustainable forest management and forest resources in Missouri within the guidelines of current legislation.
Support the continued use of the Missouri Department of Conservation's Conservation Sales Tax as a source of funding for programs that enhance forestry programs.
Reduce tax liability for timber owners who use sustainable management and Best Management Practices by

Create a sliding scale of capital gains tax on the sale of timber.
Expense management costs
Recommend a double deduction for net cost of timber stand improvement.
Request Congress to raise the threshold on inheritance taxes and reduce rate of inheritance taxes.

Special funding be provided by the Missouri Legislature to support the study of the environmental, economic and social impact of chip mills in the Missouri Ozarks.

E. OTHER

Recommendations

It is paramount that legislative or administrative initiatives relative to timber management recognize the fundamental rights and responsibilities of property owners. This Committee believes property rights must be protected as consideration is given to increased regulation of Missouri's timber resources. We advocate policies and land use practices that protect our soil and water resources without unduly restricting landowners' discretion to make responsible land use decisions.

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