Spend enough time around these parts and you’re bound to pass a log truck or two hauling that precious timber out of the region. Or perhaps you’ve noticed a “landing” on the side of the road, where logs harvested from an adjacent hillside have been staged for transport. Maybe a logger has even knocked on your door offering a tidy sum for the chance to thin out that little forest surrounding your home. Sounds good, doesn’t it?

Whoa! What are your goals for the land? Natural habitat for woodland critters? A “free” supply of firewood? A source of income over time? Or a quick score, and to heck with the consequences?

For the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Greene County, a priority when talking with any forestland owner is trying to have them think about long-term investment, or stewardship of the land.

Long a go-to source for advice on agriculture, gardening and landscaping concerns, Cornell is also a fountain of knowledge concerning forested land.

An estimated 65 percent of the landscape in this region is forested. Of that, over 85 percent is owned by private individuals. “It’s not the Adirondack Park or the Catskill Forest Preserve,” says Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator Marilyn Wyman, with Cornell.

“Only a small percentage of those (landowners) have any kind of plan or know the boundaries or composition of their forest,” she says. “To take care of your forest it’s a partnership between the landowner and the forester who’s the professional that knows what they’re doing, and the logger who’s the professional who comes in to harvest,” says Wyman.

Cornell Cooperative Extension is working to educate private landowners on the value of professional help to do the best for themselves financially, but also for the long-term health of the forest.

Wyman is program leader for the agroforestry program, headquartered at the Agroforestry Resource Center on State Route 23 in Acra. The ARC conducts programs as diverse as the importance of forest management, the cultivation of ginseng and mushrooms, land conservation and easements, maple syrup production and more.

Its wooded grounds, the Siuslaw Forest was designated a model forest in 2006. Good forest management practices are demonstrated there. It features interpretive displays and walking trails, and is open to the public during ARC business hours.

“For us the challenge is to let people know their forest is an investment and provides some sort of income … it doesn’t take very long to degrade a forest. It takes a real long time to create an ecologically-sustaining forest,” says Wyman. “Forests take a long time to appreciate. If you exploit them, … you’ll have a long time to wait before they’re worth anything and healthy again,” she says.

New York State does not require loggers or foresters to be certified. If a logger comes to the door offering you x thousands of dollars for your standing timber, it might be only a fraction of what the trees are worth, according to Wyman. “If you had a really good tree that needed more sun to grow to its full potential, harvesting the less valuable trees around it could produce a great deal of biomass to harvest in the future.”

“The key person is the landowner,” says Wyman. “You should be able to go back every 10 years and do some sort of harvest that will give you some sort of income. A lot of people who have come to us have been exploited. All the valuable timber has been (cut). We have to say to them, ‘you’re probably looking at a 60 year waiting period to get your forest back.’”

“If you’re going to be actively involved in forest management and have a desire or interest in making some money from a timber harvest, get a professional or consulting forester,” urges Wyman. “He can come in and mark the trees to be cut for you, put it out to bid, negotiate with loggers. … If you don’t know the value of your forest, you’re going to lose and your forest is going to lose.” With a forester working under legal contract, and a logger you’ve determined has liability insurance, you’re on the right track.

Cornell presents programs, webinars and newsletters addressing how to select a forester. “I tell people to check your forester’s references,” says Wyman. “Probably the hot issue … right now is you have foresters hired on a percentage of sale. ... There’s a certain incentive to maximize income for the forestland owner which also maximizes his income. That may leave the forest more exploited.” Wyman adds: “He could mark a poplar versus a cherry, it’s just marking a tree.” And, of course, the difference in sale price between the two varieties is sizeable. For this reason, Cornell encourages hiring on an hourly basis.

“Unfortunately, sometimes landowners don’t realize they’re in charge, or say they don’t know about it and do nothing,” says Wyman. Responding to this knowledge gap, Cornell oversees a Master Forest Owner program to train landowners.

“This is for people who really care about their forest and want to become educated,” says Wyman. “The payback is they do a woods walk with their neighbors. It’s very low key, a very non-intimidating process where you’re walking through the forest and asking the owner what do you want to do?”

If there appears to be a valid commercial opportunity, that Master Forest Owner or Cornell staffers will fill the owner in on the possibilities. Among them are stewardship programs prepared by the State Department of Environmental Conservation at no cost to the landowner.

“That DEC forester will come to your property and take a walk with you and then go back to his office and bring up (topographical) maps, then show you ;here are your boundaries, here are the different types of tree stands you have,’” says Wyman. There might even be funds available for an environmental quality improvement program, she says.

For a list of Master Forest Owner volunteers by region, visit the Cornell Cooperative Extension Web site at www.cce.cornell.edu and enter “master forest owner” into the search box.

And Cornell is by no means the only game in town. “If you know a bit about the trees, and you know you may have a lot of mature hardwood, you might call the DEC directly,” says Wyman. The Watershed Agricultural Council may even pay to have a forester come and do a forestry management plan for you, she says. See www.nycwatershed.org for more details.

“You can have a fairly small woodlot, 10 to 15 acres, but if you have a lot of very high quality hardwood you’ll find someone to come harvest it for you,” she says. “50 acres is the lower limit for the 480-A real property tax (break).” See www.dec.ny.gov/lands/5236.html for more information, if you think you’re a candidate for that.

In Cornell’s effort to provide credentials, “Trained Logger” certification is offered after three mandatory classes. “One is a full day of forest ecology and silviculture. They learn about the history of forests in this region,” says Wyman. Classes also cover ‘best management practices,’ to avoid soil erosion—like not skidding or dragging trees across a streambed—and chain saw safety and tree falling. “Make sure the logger you contract with has this trained logger certification,” says Wyman.

“People should take their time and really build a relationship with their forest,” says Wyman. “The only time you really care about something is if you have a relationship. … Do they want the privacy the forest provides, enjoy wildlife, want to leave a legacy to their children? It’s important to understand what makes a healthy and resilient forest and what you can do to protect and enhance that forest.”

On November 14, the Agroforestry Resource Center will present a Women’s Forest Stewardship workshop—open to interested parties of both sexes, naturally. “Women live longer than men and are often intimidated about the forest. … We thought it important to put a program together just for them,” says Wyman. Find more details at www.agroforestrycenter.org or call 518 622 9820, ext. 36.

Of course bad forestry is not the only threat to the woods.

“There are invasive pests and climate change—that will bring more pests that haven’t even been considered, and one of the biggest threats is this idea of parcelization,” says Wyman. “50 years ago the average parcel in this region could have been about 50 acres. Now we’re down to 14 or 17 and getting smaller. It doesn’t provide large enough woodlot sizes to sustain a working forest where you can go in and do some logging and some silviculture.”

Smaller parcels also impact water filtration and biodiversity, threatening species that need a certain number of intact acres.

“In the west there’s a lot of alignment between environmental groups and forestry. If woodlots keep shrinking, it impacts both of them,” says Wyman.

On a positive note, recent legislation has made the woods less appealing to thieves. “In the past if you stole somebody’s timber it would have been difficult to get the district attorney to prosecute,” says Wyman. “A good tree can be worth $300 or $400. Now, people who steel timber … are having some sort of equitable prosecution levied at them.”

For more information about the Agroforestry Center in Acra, visit www.agroforestrycenter.org or call 518 622 9820.