What privatization of national forests might look like  

From the standpoint of public access any way, Plum Creek’s forest lands in Montana were managed much like national forests.   Under Weyerhauser, maybe not.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/governor-to-weyerhaeuser-ceo-keep-timberlands-free-and-open-or/article_c4b3d91c-6a29-51b5-b311-b1748216b41b.html

2 thoughts on “What privatization of national forests might look like  ”

  1. If Congress cannot approve the sale of scattered 20 to 100 acre chunks, isolated and surrounded by private lands, what real chance is there for an outright complete ownership change? ( I doubt that even Trump could pull it off, if he becomes President, with a Republican Congress) Yep, we gotta stop people from doing things that cannot be done?

    Regarding road access, I’d have locked gates on every road that doesn’t go to (or through) public lands, over the wet months. Roads are an investment for any landowner, and it makes sense to protect them, when needed, especially when urban yahoos bring up their erosion machines.

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  2. It’s all about Net Present Value. PCL probably went to Weyco because of its debt load after all those acquisitions made while stripping the integrateds of their land bases. Weyco, on the other hand, sold a BUNCH of milling iron in order to meet the manufacturing-asset threshold needed to allow REIT restructuring — the last integrated to do so.
    Now, Weyco is going to use the REIT management strategy expertise developed by PCL management during it’s head-start period and start going through ALL the land base looking to maximize “net present value” — keeping core, best suitable as timber, while selling off HBU for top dollar, and “nonstrategic” lands to government, again for insane top-dollar HBU.
    This merger is not good news, and will have incredible, and incredibly expensive, repercussions.

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