“I Wouldn’t Trade That for Anything”: An Alabama Landowner Shares the True Meaning of Forest Ownership
A lake view on David Horsley's property
“It’s tough work but I will always follow that up with the bonus of the hard work is being able just to sit here and not hear a single car or anything—just total quiet. Do what you want to do, and there's always something to do. So yeah, I wouldn’t trade that for anything.”
Nestled in the hills of central Alabama is landowner David Horsley’s off-grid sustainable cabin—where the air conditioner is powered by the sun, the showers smell like fresh rain, and his most bothersome neighbor is a very chatty Chuck-Wills-Widow bird. He can see 27 miles across from the porch where hummingbirds gather at the feeders hung on the overhang, to lakes filled with Trophy Bass and fields covered in diverse trees. To him, the best part of the forest is the complete lack of commercial noise.
“If you could hear what I hear—which is nothing—you’d know what I mean,” he explained.
David has lived in various parts of Alabama throughout his life, growing up in Montgomery, attending college in Tuscaloosa, and starting his career in Birmingham. He now spends as much time as he can on the 800-acre property his parents acquired 25 years ago just outside Chelsea.
The property boasts multiple species of hardwoods and pines, including loblollies, short needles, longleaf, white oaks, red oaks, poplars, and black walnuts. This forest is home to beavers, foxes, deer, coyotes, and turkey so populous they’re as common as squirrels. Part of the land is an Alabama bird sanctuary, and another section is a Native American archeological dig site, scheduled to break ground this summer.
The land offers opportunities for fishing, hunting, and recreational use—and there’s no shortage of people to enjoy them. The property’s most frequent residents include David’s brother, sister, son, daughter, two nephews, and the family’s most recent addition, his grandson. David’s friends regularly visit as well, spending half their time working on projects and the other half enjoying nature. His son Hayden and his friends have followed in their footsteps, hosting bi-annual crawfish boil gatherings.
David with his family
This magical piece of Alabama seems to bring value to everyone who encounters it, but David stresses the hard work it takes to manage it. David used to have two full-time employees and Hayden to help with the many demands that come with forest ownership. Hayden now works as an archeologist in Huntsville, a career that was inspired by arrowheads he and his father would find on the land. With Hayden gone and the employees no longer working for the property, David is left to do many projects himself, with the aid of friends and family who help when they can.
Private forest ownership is already a significant amount of work but an increase in extreme weather events add another difficult layer of unpredictability. David recalled when a drought put a portion of his forest under attack from pine beetles a few years ago.
“When there's a drought and they start doing their thing it's frightening. It's just sad to watch, and you feel small. It is sad to see some of these, I don't know, 100-year-old pine trees, up on these ridges that even loggers couldn't get to, and just one tiny insect takes care of it in a couple of days.”
Luckily, David still had one employee at the time of the infestation, and they both worked around the clock to stop the spread. Situations like these highlight the importance of connecting landowners like David with the technical and financial support they need to maintain healthy forests.
After coming across an ad on Facebook, David visited the Family Forest Carbon Program website and easily navigated through the program information and qualification questions. Once he confirmed his eligibility, he researched more on carbon credits and consulted with his family. He appreciated how FFCP offered a larger portion of the payment in the first year, allowing him to catch up on any necessary expenses before putting the rest of the payments towards property taxes and insurance.
“It was perfect timing too because with all the stuff you can imagine—between the equipment and tractors and the seed and the deer field—how am I going to write a check? So this program is really going to help us do some things that could have stayed on the list for years. There are too many emergencies for one man to handle. Now we've got some money for some nice road work, opening some different spots and roads, and fixing our hydraulic gate. Everything was off a little bit and needed attention, like the pH and the soil content in the fields, the pH and the hardness of the lake. So this money is going to help.”
David’s plan to care for every element of his land reflects his deep love of the forest. 1,000 landowners like him have enrolled in FFCP to actively manage their woodlands and improve their health and value—through invasive species removal, thinning, wildfire preparation, and wildlife protection.
An overlook of David's property
“If people can just spend a day, just one day in a forest…it’s something that kind of changes you. It resets you. It makes you creative. It lowers your stress. A day goes by 10 times faster out here than it does at my home in the city,” he said.
David wants everyone to have the opportunity to see the value that forests and nature bring to the world. “Without forest preservation and correct land management, our forests and wildlife ecosystem will suffer the consequences of human expansion. If a city dweller could spend a day in a mature forest before they have to drive back home on paved roads, over steel bridges, into a concrete parking lot, they would appreciate that one day in the forest a lot more.”
Through his enrollment in FFCP—coupled with his relentless commitment to his land—David remains one more person that is part of the solution. The next challenge: getting the Chuck-Wills-Widow to pipe down so David can get some sleep!