lovely certifications!

1270d · September 25, 2012, 08:18:45 PM

FSC forest stewardship council

The way I understand it here in michigan, the logger must have at least one person on each job site that is trained in the SFI core classes. Also first aid/cpr. Also there is a requirement of "x" hours of "continuing education" credits per year. The local pulp mills will take both certified and uncertified wood, but must meet a certain percentage of volume to keep current with the guidlines.

It seems there should be some benefit to the logger for being required to hold these certs. (Sfi, fsc, master logger, etc) so far I do not know of anyone who has been treated differently or paid more for all the extra hoops they jumped through.

Many of the classes are interesting and informative. Some, not so much.

WDH · September 25, 2012, 08:20:29 PM

ATFS = American Tree Farm System.

If Tom saw this thread, he would throw a fit.

Okrafarmer · September 25, 2012, 11:46:02 PM

Quote from: WDH on September 25, 2012, 08:20:29 PM
If Tom saw this thread, he would throw a fit.

Why?

SwampDonkey · September 26, 2012, 02:40:55 AM

Not only him, but jungle Jim. Jim would write pages or copy pages on here infinitum. :D

Around here most woodlot owners have ignored all the hoopla. The Irvings are going to do what they want anyway. They even quit the Forest Products Association which every other mill is a member. They couldn't see much value in it I suspect.

They have a certification on their woodlands and Home Depot made them their supplier of lumber and pine in Canada. Just walk in and see whose name is on the pine trim and stamped on the framing lumber. :D

WDH · September 26, 2012, 07:16:55 AM

Tom felt like that certification was a bureaucratic invasion of property rights.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,23308.20.html

thecfarm · September 26, 2012, 07:41:11 AM

Boy that guy could write and than some. ;D

Okrafarmer · September 26, 2012, 08:07:49 AM

Quote from: WDH on September 26, 2012, 07:16:55 AM
Tom felt like that certification was a bureaucratic invasion of property rights.

https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php/topic,23308.20.html

That's what I was hoping you meant. I feel exactly the same way. I consider this to be one more instance of unnecessary govt tyranny. Don't get me wrong, I am in favor of people managing their forests wisely, but I believe the impetus to do so should come from the individual owners, and not from the government. I don't want someone to be all caught up in red tape just because they (A) don't want to go through all the paperwork and classes and stuff requred, or (B) they have different ideas for their property than the govt. does. >:(

Ron Wenrich · September 26, 2012, 10:16:37 AM

The government isn't the one doing the certification. Its private groups doing it, and they're in it for the bucks. Some of it is industry driven, as they're trying to keep the government out of it.

I'm one that's not in favor of certifying the landowner. Most landowners hire outside labor, either as loggers or foresters, to carry out the management. They may have the final say, but the input is from someone else. Certify the forester to carry out the management, and all products coming off the job would be certified. Check up on the forester, and if he fails, pull his certification for a few years. Same goes for the logger.

Jim used to have some real horror stories about the certification process on the Amazon.

Okrafarmer · September 26, 2012, 10:33:13 PM

I'm still one of those free-market capitalist types. What I believe is that

1. you shouldn't stop anyone from doing anything they want with their own property, even if you (or I) disagree with it, unless it is very directly harming someone else

2. If you (or I) don't like the way other people do things, we should do our best to convince them to do things in a more enlightened way, rather than forcing them to do so

3. Government should consist of the very least amount of direction and enforcement necessary to maintain peace and freedom

4. Corporations (and individuals, or any private entities,) must not be allowed to act like harmful government and control people against their will.

Having said that, I recognize that not everyone agrees with me.

But we are all free to our own thoughts.

SwampDonkey · September 27, 2012, 02:54:11 AM

There has to be some oversight. Otherwise we would all still be cutting pulpwood and logs and compensated with store rations at the company store. The company store knew how to run it so you always owed them. It happened in mining and it happened here in forestry. ;)

Okrafarmer · September 27, 2012, 08:59:43 AM

Quote from: SwampDonkey on September 27, 2012, 02:54:11 AM
There has to be some oversight. Otherwise we would all still be cutting pulpwood and logs and compensated with store rations at the company store. The company store knew how to run it so you always owed them. It happened in mining and it happened here in forestry. ;)

See # 4 above. And I did not say there should not be any government. #3 applies and means that only as much govt is needed as to maintain freedom and rights, such as to keep the problem of #4 at bay.

pigpen · September 29, 2012, 09:08:11 PM

Well.... I called fista trainer back on Tuesday only to bug him and make him squirm a little, I was still a little heated... Asked him after a bit about the possibility of rolling the dice and making the one hour trip one way in hopes that someone didnt show... IT PAID OFF!!!! only 19 or so people showed up out of 26, so waltzed right in and I was in just like that! put my 20hrs in and bingo, all done... of course I had to pay them a substantial amount too. MUCH happier now and even learned a thing or two. I will be a LOT quicker on the ball next year on my continuing ed 4 hr class. Its suprising to see all the comments on this subject to say the least, looks like there are a lot of people out there that feel the same way I do. The fista group is fairly sure they will put another class on the sometime around thanksgiving if anyone is interested, give them a call and they will put you on a list. I have two friends that log near me and I put them on it.

thecfarm · September 29, 2012, 09:13:16 PM

Lucky you. the courses are good to take. I've heard alot of good comments on how others have learned from it. But just don't like the fact that it is crammed down your throat and the cost of it and the false promises too.

pigpen · September 29, 2012, 09:25:12 PM

couldn't agree more! At the very least they should offer the class for whoever needs it and in a timely manner.

Ed_K · September 30, 2012, 08:52:15 AM

Here in Ma. its the same as Mi. It started with private land owners getting together and getting thier land certified thru a coop with FSC and smart wood as auditor.To cut and move the wood I had to get CoC certified.Thru the coop I payed $500.per yr,the coop went bellyup trying to sell the wood.then the state NRCS got into the land cert. thru chapt.61 land mangt.They haven't decide on the CoC part (been waiting all summer)but thought it may cost me $5000. per yr to keep my cert. Thats 5+ load out of my pocket.
On getting more $ I was able to send wood to a mill when other's were shut off, but only one load a day.

pigpen · September 30, 2012, 10:17:16 PM

ed k, here in wisconsin its also the same as mi, and WOW on the 5k! Dang, that sucks alot of the proffit for a long time!

SwampDonkey · October 01, 2012, 01:30:58 AM

That's why certification won't fly here with woodlot owners. They wouldn't pay $500 let alone $5000. Ones that did get certification got in initially with no cost as a pilot project. I can bet it went down hill from there if expected to pay for audits.

Okrafarmer · October 01, 2012, 01:55:58 AM

That's the problem with us Americans, sometimes, we're willing to pay for our own inconvenience!

Which reminds me, I should avoid ever taking out an ad in the yellow pages again. . . .

Ed_K · October 01, 2012, 08:45:18 PM

I should clarify, my land and other owner's in the state 61 program is certified thru the state now.They took over the cert.after the coop went defunt. The $5000. will be for me to keep my Chain of Custody # to move certified wood to a mill buying the wood. You should see the nightmare of paperwork that goes with this # >:( >:( >:( .

SwampDonkey · October 02, 2012, 12:47:53 AM

For chain of custody here all that is filled out is a load slip that the trucker must submit to the mill and one copy to the marketing board with the mill scale. Then at the end of the year the booklet is submitted to the marketing board. The slip isn't all that complicated other than knowing the ownership and PID# of the land.

Okrafarmer · October 02, 2012, 01:17:44 AM

We regularly sell to four buyers, whether it be saw logs for some, pulp for some. None of them ever ask where the stuff came from, nor do we sign any paperwork about it. We just take our receipt, and they send a check in the mail, or have it ready for us to pick up after the next payday.

SwampDonkey · October 02, 2012, 01:29:58 AM

We have a lot of wood thieves up here Okra. If you are an absantee woodlot owner, who only shows up once a year to your woodlot, you might find someone harvested all your woods last winter. So we had to come up with a system. ;)

I was asked one time to do an inventory for a family in NY on their woodland. They themselves had never cut a stick. They were rarely there to the woods. I arrived at the lot, and as soon as you left the road after about 100 feet, the woods had been cut from at least 10 years before. And someone had been living for awhile in a shack on one corner and had cut a bunch of tamarack on an acre to keep from freezing to death I assume because the wood was all brought out to the old shack.

Okrafarmer · October 02, 2012, 10:09:30 AM

That kind of thing happens here, on a subsistence level, but not so much on a coordinated level. There are a lot of squatters around here, especially in certain areas where they have learned they won't get thrown out very much. Vacant commercial land hosts a lot of homeless folks. 9 months out of the year there's not much danger of freezing to death here, the other 3 months, it doesn't take a whole lot to keep warm, a good blanket or two, etc. and maybe a small fire.

Recently they cleaned up a vacant commercial lot behind the Walmart in Berea and ejected a number of homeless folks, they had to go find some other woods to live in.

Firewood is not a big business here, like it is up north, and since pulpwood doesn't pay much, and sawlogs take some coordination to get together, there's not a lot of deliberate wood theft here. The only thing might be the occasional walnut tree, but even the walnut log market is and has been soft around here. The pines and other softwoods here don't even make good Christmas trees, as a general rule, though some people use Leyland cypress. But you'd have to cut one out of somebody's yard, and that takes a lot of gall.