News from myminnesotawoods.org

If you’d like to pay higher taxes and don’t like the idea of a free consultation with a local forestry professional, a written plan for your woodland may not be for you. Otherwise, this post will help you understand these and other benefits. It will also describe your different options to get a plan.

Benefits of a written plan

Minnesota’s new lower property tax class requires a written plan. In order to qualify for Minnesota’s new lower woodland tax rate, you must have a current written forest management plan. Likewise for Minnesota’s Sustainable Forests Incentive Act, which provides annual per-acre payments.

Because both programs provide significant financial benefits, many woodland owners are expected to request a new Forest Stewardship plan in the coming months. The sooner you get on the list, the better.

Possible income tax benefit. As Mike Reichenbach writes in our ongoing Income Taxes and Family Forests series, a current written plan can be one important factor in your eligibility to write off woodland expenses on your federal income tax.

Free consultation with a local professional forester. Although written plans are not legally binding, they’re a great source of practical advice to help achieve your vision. A good plan will focus on your family’s specific vision and goals for your property. These goals may include wildlife habitat improvement, recreational uses, woodland improvement, income from timber harvesting, or other activities.

Some plans are written by Department of Natural Resources foresters, others by private consulting foresters. In either case, you get free advice from a professional based on your vision and desire for the future of the property.

Different ways to get a written plan

In order to qualify for most property tax, cost share, and incentive payment programs, plans generally must be written by a natural resource professional. There are at least two ways to obtain a plan:

1. Call your local DNR - Forestry Area Office and sign up for a free plan. If you have 20 or more wooded acres in Minnesota, you’re eligible for a free Forest Stewardship Plan (read more about Forest Stewardship Plans here.) DNR foresters prepare some plans themselves, but also administer contracts with approved local private-sector professionals to write plans. Either way, you’ll be contacted when your name gets to the top of the list.

2. Contact a local private-sector forester directly. Many private-sector foresters have active Forest Stewardship contracts and may be able to provide plans for free under that program. If not, paying for a plan is a small investment (typically a few hundred dollars, depending on property size) that will pay for itself very quickly through the programs described above.

Demand for written plans is expected to be very high over the next year or two. Working directly with a paid private-sector professional may be a way to get your plan completed quickly.

To find a professional, visit the Minnesota Association of Consulting Foresters or check our forestry professionals page.

To review: Written woodland management plans make you eligible for a number of financial benefits. These benefits include low property tax rates, incentive payments, and cost-sharing for woodland improvement practices.

You can get a written plan for free or for a small investment either from your local DNR-Forestry office or from a local forestry professional. Demand for plans is expected to be very high over the next year or two, so the sooner you get on the list, the sooner you’ll be eligible for the many benefits already described.

Two months ago, we asked MyMinnesotaWoods.org readers to help us write this story. Thank you to all who responded! Based on our readers’ suggestions, here’s our list:

1. Know what you - and your family - love most about your land. What’s your vision for the future of your land? Do you want more wildlife, more big trees, a quiet refuge, ski trails, a source of income, or something else? All of the above?

Developing a vision for the future of your land is an important step. This vision needs to be based in reality, both in terms of local ecology and also your family’s long-term interest in owning and caring for the land.

What to do: It may seem overly formal, but writing down your vision and talking to your family is a crucial step in achieving it.

2. Know how your woodland is naturally changing. Forests are constantly changing. Trees grow, trees die, wind and ice take trees down, insects come and go, climate changes…. All of these changes can affect not only the future of your woodland, but the value of your land and timber.

Sustainable forest management works with the natural forces in your woods. The more you know about these forces of change, the more you can guide that change to meet your objectives.

What to do: Careful observation of your land can be a great place to start. Watch carefully for which trees are dying, which trees are taking their place, what insects are present, which stands are overcrowded, and so on. Not sure how to interpret the changes? Talk to a professional forester.

3. Get a free Forest Stewardship Plan for your property. Forest Stewardship Plans are prepared by local professional foresters. Your plan will include a detailed inventory of your wooded property, including species, ages, stand histories, and more. You’ll also get information about the ecology of your landscape.

Your plan will include specific recommendations for each wooded stand based on your unique objectives. Every plan is specific to the property and the landowner. Whether your focus is wildlife, recreation, big trees, timber, or something else, the plan will recommend ways to get more of it, faster.

Your plan is not binding, but will be helpful as you plan for the future of your land. A current Forest Stewardship Plan is also a requirement for many cost-share and incentive payment programs

What to do: To sign up, contact your local Minnesota DNR Forestry Area Office. The best part? It’s FREE.

4. Know where to find financial and professional help. Local professionals can tell you about cost-share opportunities (to help pay for wildlife habitat improvement, tree planting, woodland improvement, and more). They can help you interpret changes in your land, tell you how wood products markets are changing, and more.

A local professional forester can plug you in to programs like the Sustainable Forests Incentive Act, which provides incentive payments to promote sound forest stewardship and keeping land forested. They can also help you understand recent changes to Minnesota’s woodland tax provisions.

Finally, if you choose to sell timber, a professional forester can help ensure that you receive top dollar, and also that you’re happy with your woods after the harvest.

What to do: Read about some organizations that may be available to help you, or read about different sources of professional help.

5. Get to know other local landowners. Minnesota has at least 20 local private woodland committees, councils, forest landowner co-operatives, and local chapters of the Minnesota Forestry Association (MFA).

You should also know about the Woodland Advisor program. The program offers between 50 and 75 classroom and field workshops every year for family forest owners. The program is managed by Extension, the Minnesota DNR, MFA, and numerous other private and public partners.

Workshops are offered in partnership with local organizations. These events can be an excellent opportunities to meet local landowners and professionals and get answers to your questions.

What to do: For a list of local woodland organizations, visit MFA’s website and click “chapters” on the left.

Add your thoughts: What resources have you found most helpful? What have we missed? Leave a comment to help others learn from your experience.

Bruce ZumBahlen wrote a guest post yesterday on the Vital Forests / Vital Communities blog describing changes to Minnesota’s property tax. These are exciting changes, favoring active sustainable management through consultation with a professional forester.

Every Minnesota woodland owner should know about these changes! An excerpt:

For the first time, MN has a law that provides the opportunity for woodland owners who are managing their property under a forest stewardship plan to receive a reduction in their property taxes payable in 2009 and thereafter.

Bruce and the Minnesota Forestry Association deserve great credit for their work to advance this issue.

Click here to read Bruce’s summary.
-eli

This month we’re excited to announce a new way of aggregating and displaying news on MyMinnesotaWoods.org. Our “In the news…” box is now set up with an RSS feed. The new list will automatically display any news items tagged in the social bookmarking site del.icio.us.

We’re excited about this approach because it offers the community a new way to contribute content to the site. This is one of several ways that we’re trying to do this.

If you’re not familiar with del.icio.us, it’s a free and simple way to store your bookmarks remotely. This means your bookmarks are accessible from any internet-connected computer. You can easily share your bookmarks, or just as easily keep them private. Learn more about del.icio.us.

If you have a del.icio.us account and want to add news items to our feed, contact Eli or Philip to find out how.

Just a quick note about an excellent source of free, high quality woodland info:

Cornell University’s Forest Connect series is the source for monthly live web-based seminars on a wide variety of woodland topics. The presentations are designed for woodland owners, and are typically offered at both noon and 7pm on the third Wednesday of each month. Even though the seminars tend to focus on eastern forests, many topics would be highly relevant to Minnesota woodland owners. And they’re completely free.

What have you got to lose? See a list of past presentations, or register to receive announcements of future events.

Have you attended one of these seminars? What was your take? Leave a comment below.

We’re working on a new story: Five things every woodland owner should know. The new content will be featured in the June email update and be a new featured page on MyMinnesotaWoods.org.

We need your help building the list!

For this story, you’re the expert. Imagine yourself talking over a cup of coffee with a friend who just bought wooded acreage for the first time. What would you tell her or him and why?

Leave a comment below with your thoughts. We’ll use your responses to build our June story.

The October MMW email udpate included a feature story on carbon credits for forestry. Carbon credits are currently traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange, and standards and criteria are in development. At least for now, growing timber in plantings established after 1990 is eligible for carbon credit trading.

No Minnesota woodland owners (that we know of) are yet receiving carbon credit payments. The system is still in development, and it’s uncertain whether forestry activities will ultimately be eligible.

With that in mind, was this story premature? Maybe. We went with it now because we wanted to make sure that family forest owners and professional foresters in Minnesota are aware of this issue. The potential carbon credit payments are significant - about $12 per acre on average in Minnesota - and this is an important time for interested individuals and organizations to weigh in as standards and criteria are being developed.

We hope the story will encourage action to help ensure that growing wood will be recognized in carbon credit markets for its value in reducing atmospheric carbon and helping to mitigate the impacts of carbon emissions.

You can read the new content at our carbon credits page.

-eli

This morning, just before sending out the July MMW update email, I added a Flickr photo badge to the white pine forest type page. The badge randomly calls up 10 images from my Flickr photo library that are tagged with the words “white” and “pine.” The images change with every reload. Clicking an image takes the user to the original Flickr photo page.

I’m not a big fan of bells & whistles, but everybody likes photos. Some of the photos are annotated (when I have time), making them a decent resource for woodland owners.

We’ll see how this goes. I’d appreciate feedback–is this sort of thing a great use of graphics or just clutter?

As part of a LCCMR-funded family forest certification project, a brochure was created and mailed to woodland owners in northeastern Minnesota. The brochure directs recipients to MyMinnesotaWoods.org for further information about certification and how they can get involved.

To prepare for these visits, we created a new feature banner on the homepage (click the image for a better view). The feature will run for about two months from the brochure mailing date (apx. June 30). We also significantly added to the site’s forest certification content, expanding from a single page to three: Overview, How to Certify Your Land, and Certification Systems & Standards. (At the time of this writing, some content is still in development for these pages.)

Why the focus on certification? Certification of private woodlands has been a major issue in Minnesota in recent years. Retail markets are increasingly demanding certified forest products. Although most public and industry lands in Minnesota are certified, very little private (non-industrial) land is.

Many factors may explain low woodland owner adoption of certification. Two prominent factors are lack of awareness of certification and confusion about how to get certified. The brochure and associated web content are designed to address these two factors, making more landowners aware of certification and clarifying the processes and options available to certify their land or to hire a certified logger.

Partners in the LCCMR-funded project include the University of Minnesota Extension, the U of M Department of Forest Resources, Dovetail Partners, Minnesota Logger Education Program, Minnesota Forestry Association, and the Blandin Foundation.

There have been some surprises in content pageviews. To some degree pageview stats are skewed because some have been featured in email updates and others have not.

Overall, three months after launch, the site averages about 70 visits and 195 pageviews daily.

But: pageview rankings as of three months after launch (excluding homepage and discussion board, and not excluding hits by Eli and Philip):

1. Maps & airphotos: 520 pageviews
2. Directory of professionals: 399 views (dummy page–directory is still in development)
3. Wildlife / overview: 303
4. Small parcels / overview: 259
5. Small parcels / family: 255
6. About the site: 219 (replaced with this blog)
7. Minnesota forest history: 213
8. Wildlife / species: 198
8. Forest / thinning: 198
10: Wildlife / landscape considerations: 191

The main surprise to me is the popularity of the maps & airphotos page. Seeing this and working with the Minnesota Logger Education Program, we added significantly to the content of that page early in June and featured it in the June email update. This page was by far the most popular feature in that email.

No surprise about the high wildlife numbers.

Seeing these stats, we really need to improve the small parcels and forest history (and other) pages. There’s a lot to do.