Making Music, Talking Trees: A Rock Star and Forest Owner Speaks Out

Posted: 26-Jul-2005; Updated: 12-Sep-2006

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Chuck Leavell (left), rock musician and family forester, and Mark Hainds, Longleaf Alliance, spoke about forestry conservation practices at a June 2004 field tour for Georgia landowners. Credit: Drue DeBerry/American Forest Foundation

Chuck Leavell wants to be heard, and not only when he's playing keyboard with the Rolling Stones. The rock star has a lot to say about family forestry and what he calls "the invisible forest health crisis."

Though Leavell is better known for keyboarding with the Stones and in earlier stints with the Allman Brothers, Eric Clapton and others, he is as passionate about forests as music. Last month he spoke at a Congressional briefing on forestry issues, and, along with co-author Mary Welch, has published a new book, Forever Green: The History and Hope of the American Forest.

A private forester urges conservation

Chuck and his wife, Rose Lane Leavell, are family forest owners who've spent much of their adult lives tending the 2,200-acre Charlane Plantation, their family property near Macon, Georgia. Like most family foresters, the Leavells manage their property for wildlife, recreation, timber, aesthetics and other objectives. Over the last 20 years, Leavell has become not only a forest management expert, but also a spokesman for the conservation of family forestlands.

To date, the national forest debate has focused on wildfires and the management of western public lands. In contrast, in the East the vast majority of forestland is privately owned, mostly by individuals and families. Thus Leavell is concerned with a different crisis: the erosion of forests by development, a loss that he describes as "a crisis where many forest owners don't see a way to preserve their family's heritage of voluntary, private stewardship." 

Non-industrial forests provide multiple benefits

Every year about 1.5 million of the nation's 750 million acres of forestland are lost to sprawl and development. In the South alone, the U.S. Forest Service predicts that we'll lose 20 to 25 million acres to development over the next four decades. When forest vanishes, a wealth of public benefits also disappears. For example, the southern forest products industry contributes $120 billion a year to the economy. About 70% of our wood comes from family-owned forests.

For other public benefits, it's difficult to assign a monetary value. Forestland provides habitat for both game and non-game wildlife, drinking water supplies, recreational opportunities and open space that enhances neighboring property values and quality of life.

For these invaluable ecosystem services, private landowners receive very little compensation. They can sell wood, but have a tougher time capturing financial benefits from their forests' ecosystem services. If landowners could derive income from standing trees, perhaps far less forestland would be lost to sprawl. Yet forest owners get only a tiny fraction of the more than $3 billion the federal government gives each year to private landowners as conservation incentives. Although the Conservation Reserve Program has funded conversion of marginal croplands to forests, few dollars have been spent to manage and conserve existing forestlands. Landowners have few places to turn for technical and financial assistance to write forest management plans, use prescribed fire, control invasive species, thin fire-suppressed stands of trees or otherwise manage their lands in ways that satisfy multiple objectives.

Farm Bill offers little funding for foresters

In the 2002 Farm Bill, Congress authorized the Forest Land Enhancement Program which was to receive about $20 million annually. Although the program is small by Farm Bill standards, forest landowners have had to struggle to maintain it. The Bush administration and even some Congressional appropriators have sought to eliminate its funding, and only an outcry from forest owners and conservation groups has kept the program alive, demonstrating the strong support for forest incentive programs.

Another option for forest landowners under the Farm Bill is the Environmental Quality Incentives Program, funded at about a billion dollars a year and administered by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. Although forest owners are eligible for EQIP funding, the program has largely benefited livestock producers and other farmers. Some states, such as Arkansas and New Hampshire, have set aside EQIP funding for forests, but nationwide less than 2% of the program's dollars are spent on forests activities annually. A large share of that goes to installing shelter belts and other activities on farmland that can hardly be considered forestry.

Advocates take invisible forest crisis to Congress

Several non-governmental organizations are working to increase awareness of the "invisible forest health crisis." In May, the American Forest Foundation, The Nature Conservancy, National Wildlife Federation, Southern Environmental Law Center and Environmental Defense's Center for Conservation Incentives helped organize Capitol Hill briefings to call attention to the need for resources to conserve and manage southern forests. Joining these organizations were the Southern Group of State Foresters, U.S. Forest Service researchers, the National Association of Conservation Districts, the Hardwood Lumber Association and the Society of American Foresters, demonstrating the depth of support for expanding conservation incentives and assistance programs for family forest owners.

That same day Chuck Leavell was supposed to be in New York, alongside Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, announcing the Rolling Stones's new world tour. Instead he was in Washington giving the keynote address at the Congressional forestry briefings. When it comes to raising awareness about the need to protect private forestlands, Chuck Leavell rocks.

-Robert Bonnie
Managing Director
Center for Conservation Incentives
Environmental Defense

-Laurence D. Wiseman
President and Chief Executive Officer
American Forest Foundation

Editor's note: To learn more about the conservation forestry practices Chuck Leavell uses, see American Forest Foundation's Forest Ecosystem Conservation Handbook for Birds in Georgia: A Guide for Family Forest Owners. Request a copy by visiting www.forestedflyways.org or calling 202-463-2475.