Family Forest Blog
October 7, 2020
Dwayne Wilson, 2020 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year Finalist
Dr. Dwayne Wilson personally manages Slippery Hills Farm, in Wildersville, Tennessee, with the knowledge of a forester and the harvesting skills of a logger. The farm, totaling 405 acres (170 are ATFS certified), has been in his family since 1849, when Uriah Leonard bought the land from the state.
October 7, 2020
Allene and Foots Parnell, 2020 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year Finalist
Allene and Leighton “Foots” Parnell are passionate stewards of their 648-acre Foothills Farm, which has been in the Parnell family for more than 175 years. That long history drives home the importance of protecting and improving our natural resources for future generations. Foothills Farm is a perfect example of how to achieve that.
October 7, 2020
Don Newell, 2020 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year Finalist
Don and Patricia Newell acquired their 250-acre property in Thorndike, Maine, in 1978, selling the lots with prime soils to farmers and keeping the forestland for their family. As a real estate broker and a descendent of Maine farmers and loggers, Don understands his obligation to leave the land better than he found it for future generations.
October 7, 2020
Clifton Taylor, 2020 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year Finalist
Clifton Taylor’s tree farm, Elk Cave Farms, in Gravel Switch, Kentucky, has grown from 287 acres in 1959 to 1,076 acres of certified hardwood forestland. That first tract launched the family’s mission of establishing new forests, tending young timber stands, and harvesting sustainable forest products from mature trees. Today, three generations of Taylors actively manage the land and generously share their knowledge with other landowners.
October 7, 2020
Paul and Joanne Mechling, 2020 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year Finalist
Paul and Joanne Mechling moved to Ashtabula County, Ohio, in 1974 to launch a veterinary practice. Although they knew very little about forest management at the time, they knew they wanted to own woodlands. The couple soon purchased their first parcel, 30 acres of reverting agriculture and clear-cut, and enrolled it in the Ohio Tree Farm program in 1978.
October 7, 2020
Gordon and Gail Culbertson, 2020 National Outstanding Tree Farmer of the Year Finalist
Gail and Gordon Culbertson formed Whitewater Forests in 2001 with their first 43 acres in Douglas County, Oregon, eventually adding two more parcels for a total of 151 acres, 111 of which are ATFS certified. They sustainably produce premium sawmill and veneer logs from Douglas fir, Western red cedar, and white fir, while promoting healthy habitats and recreational opportunities.
August 27, 2020
American Forest Foundation Pledges 84 Million Trees to 1T.org
Today, the American Forest Foundation (AFF), a national conservation organization that focuses on empowering family and private forest owners to protect and improve their forests, joined 26 other conservation leaders in committing to the 1t.org U.S. chapter as part of the global trillion trees effort.
August 24, 2020
Prairie View A&M University Joins SFLR Network
The American Forest Foundation (AFF), administrator of the Sustainable Forestry and African American Land Retention Project (SFLR), is pleased to welcome Prairie View A&M University as the SFLR’s Network’s newest member. SFLR is a network that helps African American landowners turn their family forests into sustainable economic assets.
August 20, 2020
New White Paper Details Opportunities to Empowering Family Forest Owners to Address Climate Change
The American Forest Foundation (AFF), a conservation organization that focuses on empowering family and private forest owners to protect and improve their forests, has released a new white paper outlining the case for working with family forests to sequester and store more carbon.
August 19, 2020
White Paper: Family Forests and Carbon Markets
It’s undeniable that our environment and climate face extreme challenges that must be addressed. Detailing America’s family-owned forests and their owners, the white paper explores the values and motivations of landowners, their barriers to action, and a crucial mechanism — carbon markets — that can help enable them to take action.
August 7, 2020
When and How to Leverage Family Forest Carbon
Growing stakeholder and investor pressure for climate change commitments has resulted in numerous corporate announcements of publicly declared reduction targets, including Kimberly-Clarke and BMW just this month. But how will they meet these goals? Many companies are still trying to figure this out. But how does a company begin to systemically address their carbon footprint? Perhaps the answer lies in a framework used by conservationists for over a century, the carbon mitigation hierarchy.
August 7, 2020
Filling in the Critical Data Gaps to Support the Gopher Tortoise
AFF’s approach to engaging private and family landowners in gopher tortoise recovery is filling in the gaps and providing a more comprehensive solution to helping this candidate species for federal protection.
August 5, 2020
AFF Launches Pilots in GA, SC and FL to Grow ATFS Certification Three-Fold
For family landowners, being certified in ATFS validates good forest stewardship and provides access to free or reduced professional resources to help them care for their land. For some, however, the certification process can be long and slow. In fact, across the U.S., fewer than 10% of family lands in the U.S. are certified. Starting this year, AFF is launching pilot programs in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, which will aim to increase the growth rate of certified acres by three times its current pace annually.
August 5, 2020
American Forest Foundation Statement on the Rural Forests Markets Act
The Rural Forests Markets Act is designed to open carbon and other markets to small landowners that are currently unavailable to them. By allowing the USDA to provide guarantees for upfront capital investment the financial burdens landowners face to enter carbon markets are reduced, allowing them to access revenue from carbon markets to finance stewardship activities that have a carbon sequestration benefit, among other co-benefits.
June 30, 2020
American Forest Foundation Statement on the House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis
In response to the release of the House of Representatives Select Committee on the Climate Crisis, the following can be contributed to Tom Martin, President and CEO of the American Forest Foundation (AFF), a non-profit conservation organization that specializes in helping family-owned forests be productive for a wide array of benefits such as wildlife habitat, clean water, sustainable wood supplies and carbon storage.