Forest management, among other things, is the careful manipulation of the landscape to achieve the goals of a landowner. It is complex and requires a long horizon to meet those goals. Missteps can take years, even decades, to correct. And money that’s “left on the table” is lost forever. When our craft is done in the best way, it takes into consideration the many and varied facets of land ownership. Capable managers must consider the powerful intertwining of people and their properties, their forest resources and available markets, soils and the plants and animals that live on them, as well as the many other benefits of owning property. They must understand all stages of stand management, from site preparation for replanting, to mid rotation management, and on to final harvest dynamics. We’d love to schedule a free consultation to discuss how SouthLand might be of help. We’ll look at your place with you and answer the questions necessary to help you make the best decision about wether or not you might benefit from our involvement. It’s free to get to know us.

It’s a common scenario: a landowner finds themself with timber that they want to sell. How should they proceed? First, they have a very important question to answer: do they get representation to help them get the most from the market… or do they go it on their own? To be sure, most landowners can easily find plenty of loggers and timber buyers willing to buy their timber. But that decision creates a classic example of a conflict of interest. The fact is that when a logger or wood buyer negotiates to buy timber, they make more when a landowner gets paid less. And what is also almost certainly true is that they understand the timber they are trying to buy much more than does the landowner that is selling. We see examples far too often of tracts that were unrepresented at harvest and left in bad shape, both in regard to rutting and clean-up as well as poor residual stand quality. Sure, it costs something to hire SouthLand, but what the landowner will have in the end… after paying for our help… is greater and better. Greater wealth and better stewardship are the reality for our clients.

Owning land is just different. Perhaps more than any other large asset, land gets into the soul of its owner. Landowners enjoy a resource that provides a wide range of benefits… and the most cherished of these for many landowners is the recreational wealth of their place. For these landowners, the most memorable and cherished moments spent on their property are made possible by the ability of a given landscape to recruit and sustain wildlife. Very often, the decisions of prior landowners and even adjoining landowners make it unlikely that your property is doing the best it can to produce the quality and quantity of habitat that is possible. This is where a forest manager that understands the relationships between all those living and nonliving players within an ecosystem can be of great help. The timing of harvests, the frequency and intensity of prescribed fire, the use of chemical or mechanical tools, and the layout and diversity of the overall property … all of these must be considered. Here at SouthLand, we love doing this for our clients… and we can do it well.