Family Forests:
Call Them as They Are, Not as We See Them
Laurence Wiseman
President
American Forest Foundation
If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things.
If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.
Confucius (551-479 BC)
Too bad Confucius wasn’t a forester. If he were, no doubt we wouldn’t be in the bind we are today. We’d have a much better way of describing the land that makes up most of our timberland, and half of all the forests in the US. And maybe we’d be closer to a public climate in which these forests can be sustained.
Everybody knows whose forests these are. But the names we use to describe family-owned forests are as diverse as the perspectives from which we observe, understand and think about them.
Some call them NIPFS, or “non-industrial private forests.” The owners are called NIPFS too, often just by sounding out the acronym – like saying nymphs without the “m” and a semi-silent “pf” sound. Even after twenty-plus years, I still can’t help but think of an insect swarm when I hear it.
Another common term for these millions of tracts is “non-Federal forests.” No doubt family owners take considerable comfort from this term because few put becoming “more Federal” high on their list of life goals. A more recent entrant to the nomenclature sweepstakes is “non-controlled lands,” a term used in certification circles to distinguish wood from fee-owned lands from all others.
All these terms are precise and accurate as far as they go. But each one defines family forests by what they aren’t – not by what they are. And therein lies a problem.
Names do matter. We tailor our solutions to problems we understand, and we articulate that understanding in the names we assign to our “problems.” We use names to communicate what we know, and the goals we seek. The right nomenclature can help mobilize stakeholders; the wrong name can confound or confuse them or leave them out of the solution altogether.
Great shifts in our public climate are often marked by changes in nomenclature. For decades, people who were blind or deaf or confined to a wheel-chair were lumped in a great mass – “the handicapped.” It was understood they just couldn’t do what other people could. In the ‘70s, that perception began to change. Instead of focusing solely on the disability [“the blind,” “the deaf”], people saw the person instead. And, in thinking about people with disabilities rather than the disability itself, we came to understand they could do pretty much what anybody else could do – with accommodation. The results of this simple shift in perception are all around us.
That’s why I say we in forestry should toss out the old names and call family-owned forests just what they are – family-owned forests. And we should do it now.
The climate for sustaining forests is changing, and increasingly, family-owned forests are moving to center stage. The new Farm Bill offers a broad new platform for outreach, education, technical assistance and conservation incentives for “non-industrial private forest owners.” Foundations are pondering huge grants to environmental groups to educate “non-industrial private forest owners” about biodiversity. Certification systems are wrestling with the problem of how to recognize sustainable forestry on “non-controlled lands.”
Right now, not one of these challenges are framed properly.
The defining characteristic of these forests isn’t that they’re “not” Federal, or “not” industrial or that they’re somehow “not controlled.” Their most profound and singular characteristic is that they’re owned by families and individuals – near 5 million of them with 10 acres or more. [Of course, the old nomenclature lumps together tribal lands, trust lands, as well as state and county lands. They need to be identified separately too because, in the public arena, one size almost never fits all.]
Taking the simple step of calling family-owned forests by their proper name, will change the tone and tenor of the debate about sustaining their future. It will humanize it, put a face to it. Instead of “fixing” impersonal, structural problems, we can listen, learn from and work with the people whose decisions will truly determine what ultimately happens in the woods.
Just as important, it will reassure the public that the majority owners of America’s timberland – families – share the same fundamental values they do. And in the long run, it will prove that keeping a forest in family hands, is keeping it in good hands.
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Laurence Wiseman is president of the American Forest Foundation, which administers the American Tree Farm System. In the 1970s, he was a senior staff member of the American Coalition of Citizens with Disabilities. There he was surprised to learn that 2,500 years earlier Confucius actually did say “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.”
