5 ms·

As a plot owner, at least in Europe, you cannot make a living with just the trees. At the moment, and this is expected to worsen with the time, we go through se

by Loic 5y ago

As a plot owner, at least in Europe, you cannot make a living with just the trees. At the moment, and this is expected to worsen with the time, we go through series of very harsh weather conditions over long periods of time. We have a lot of wood getting lost or sold at the cost of harvesting (if not less). You basically lose 20 to 30 years of taking care of the trees and you need to "restart" the forest naturally afterwards, because anyway, you have no ideas what could be the right kind of trees to support the climate change. You lose money on the forest, the land is getting more value, but it means just more taxes nothing more. At the moment, it does not make sense to own only the land, the value is extracted one level above. But here in Europe (at least in France), forest is owned by a lot of people. Many, many people have 1ha or less, here and there, because of the agricultural tradition of the country (forest has been growing again on not taken care of fields). Source: We have about 300ha, taken care of in a "sustainable" way (all the stuff you read about the "best/ecological" way to take care of a forest) for the past 30 years, we just break even. That is, the forest is bringing no money at all to the owners, everything is going back to pay the workers and taxes.

Fiahil 5y ago
I think it's been the case for a long time, that cutting trees and selling them is not financially interesting. My own goal is to get a couple of ha, plant "a few" trees and let them grow without planning on cutting anything for the next century. Nobody is doing that anymore, so it might be interesting to see what happens!
- Loic 5y ago
  Do it! A forest is wonderful and buying a small lot does not cost that much. But if in France, stay below the 40ha limit to not have to deal with massive costs of having your forest to be managed with validated planning every X years etc. which makes it very hard to keep "wild" areas in it (even more paperwork!).
  - Fiahil 5y ago
    > But if in France, stay below the 40ha limit to not have to deal with massive costs of having your forest to be managed I read about that a while ago! To me it seems like good-intent at first that turned out a complete bureaucratic creep! My question is: Can we decide to "manage" the forest ourselves and be registered as an official "forest manager", draft a management plan, publish any outstanding paperwork, etc ? I'm not sure about which administrative body would enforce the planning and management (municipalities, ONF, ...) I won't go above 40ha for any foreseeable future, so it's probably not an issue!
    - Loic 5y ago
      The 40ha limit is generous. This is because at the moment we have a lot of diseases in the forests (thank you climate change...). Nearly each specie is suffering of one and sometimes, the only way not to transform your forest in a reservoir which then spread and attack the surroundings is to quickly remove the trees. Trees are not evolving as fast as the speed we destroy our environment, we have no choices left and we need to help them by not letting the forest completely wild. You need a bit of control. This is the reasoning being this 40ha limit. Starting this limit, you need to do the control seriously.
      - Fiahil 5y ago
        Very good point! Thanks for sharing!
      - canadianfella 5y ago
        Specie?
      - webmaven 5y ago
        > Trees are not evolving as fast as the speed we destroy our environment, we have no choices left and we need to help them by not letting the forest completely wild. Mostly, the problem isn't actually one of too-slow evolution, but even more basic: Forests often can't migrate fast enough to keep up with current rates of climactic zone movement. Human intervention is pretty simple and effective, though: keep planting trees on the leading edge of the forest (usually poleward or upslope where the limit is temperature, away from the coast where the limit is precipitation) Of course, there are ecosystems that don't have anywhere convenient to move to (arctic and alpine, for example), but most forests don't fall into that category.
- tinco 5y ago
  What do you mean by nobody is doing that anymore? Isn't this exactly what a nature reserve is, they're all over the place. My family owned one of the larger forests in The Netherlands originally developed to sell timber but it was infeasible so the family sold most of it to the national forestry service, which is paid by the government to take care of the forests. Mostly by not cutting them down.
- muskox2 5y ago
  My grandmother has about 10 acres with lots of >100 yo trees on it. It's fairly common around where I live.
cmrdporcupine 5y ago
Here in Ontario having a managed forest entitles you to the same better property tax rate that farmers get. Basically 1/3rd of the annual taxes. Unfortunately my 7 acres (2.8 ha) isn't big enough, you need at least 4 hectares of woods (I have about 1). But I think the point of the program they offer is more for conservation than for incentivizing wood production. (Softwood exports have ceased to be a healthy industry in Canada a couple decades ago, especially since a long and ugly trade war with the United States which they seemingly won.)
- i_haz_rabies 5y ago
  You can get more tax breaks for planting > 6 fruit trees, and an additional break if you get a forester to survey your woodlot and they find species on a protected list! There are also incentives for putting in wetlands/ponds and grassland.

by Loic 5y ago

Fiahil 5y ago

I think it's been the case for a long time, that cutting trees and selling them is not financially interesting. My own goal is to get a couple of ha, plant "a few" trees and let them grow without planning on cutting anything for the next century. Nobody is doing that anymore, so it might be interesting to see what happens!

Loic 5y ago
Do it! A forest is wonderful and buying a small lot does not cost that much. But if in France, stay below the 40ha limit to not have to deal with massive costs of having your forest to be managed with validated planning every X years etc. which makes it very hard to keep "wild" areas in it (even more paperwork!).
- Fiahil 5y ago
  > But if in France, stay below the 40ha limit to not have to deal with massive costs of having your forest to be managed I read about that a while ago! To me it seems like good-intent at first that turned out a complete bureaucratic creep! My question is: Can we decide to "manage" the forest ourselves and be registered as an official "forest manager", draft a management plan, publish any outstanding paperwork, etc ? I'm not sure about which administrative body would enforce the planning and management (municipalities, ONF, ...) I won't go above 40ha for any foreseeable future, so it's probably not an issue!
  - Loic 5y ago
    The 40ha limit is generous. This is because at the moment we have a lot of diseases in the forests (thank you climate change...). Nearly each specie is suffering of one and sometimes, the only way not to transform your forest in a reservoir which then spread and attack the surroundings is to quickly remove the trees. Trees are not evolving as fast as the speed we destroy our environment, we have no choices left and we need to help them by not letting the forest completely wild. You need a bit of control. This is the reasoning being this 40ha limit. Starting this limit, you need to do the control seriously.
    - Fiahil 5y ago
      Very good point! Thanks for sharing!
    - canadianfella 5y ago
      Specie?
    - webmaven 5y ago
      > Trees are not evolving as fast as the speed we destroy our environment, we have no choices left and we need to help them by not letting the forest completely wild. Mostly, the problem isn't actually one of too-slow evolution, but even more basic: Forests often can't migrate fast enough to keep up with current rates of climactic zone movement. Human intervention is pretty simple and effective, though: keep planting trees on the leading edge of the forest (usually poleward or upslope where the limit is temperature, away from the coast where the limit is precipitation) Of course, there are ecosystems that don't have anywhere convenient to move to (arctic and alpine, for example), but most forests don't fall into that category.
tinco 5y ago
What do you mean by nobody is doing that anymore? Isn't this exactly what a nature reserve is, they're all over the place. My family owned one of the larger forests in The Netherlands originally developed to sell timber but it was infeasible so the family sold most of it to the national forestry service, which is paid by the government to take care of the forests. Mostly by not cutting them down.
muskox2 5y ago
My grandmother has about 10 acres with lots of >100 yo trees on it. It's fairly common around where I live.

cmrdporcupine 5y ago

Here in Ontario having a managed forest entitles you to the same better property tax rate that farmers get. Basically 1/3rd of the annual taxes. Unfortunately my 7 acres (2.8 ha) isn't big enough, you need at least 4 hectares of woods (I have about 1). But I think the point of the program they offer is more for conservation than for incentivizing wood production. (Softwood exports have ceased to be a healthy industry in Canada a couple decades ago, especially since a long and ugly trade war with the United States which they seemingly won.)

i_haz_rabies 5y ago
You can get more tax breaks for planting > 6 fruit trees, and an additional break if you get a forester to survey your woodlot and they find species on a protected list! There are also incentives for putting in wetlands/ponds and grassland.