![](\"http:\/\/www.gfc.state.ga.us\/AboutUs\/images\/Langdaleweb.jpg\")
<\/a>\nTo get an idea of why big timber growers might find biomass attractive,\nhere’s an article by Terry Dickson in the Florida Times-Union from 20 June 2005,\n<\/a>\nTo get an idea of why big timber growers might find biomass attractive,\nhere’s an article by Terry Dickson in the Florida Times-Union from 20 June 2005,\n\nState’s forestry industry in an ‘alarming decline’<\/a>\n\nPeople have long debated whether there is a sound if a tree falls in a\nforest but nobody is there to hear it.\n\nThe fall of revenue from Georgia’s forestry industry, however, has\nattracted a lot of attention — but $10 billion is hard to ignore.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
\nGeorgia Tech economic output studies showed that forestry’s value to\nthe state’s economy declined from $30.5 billion in 2001 to $20.2 billion\nin 2003.\n\n“Quite an alarming decline,” said Steve McWilliams, executive vice\npresident of the Georgia Forestry Association.\n
\nAlarming enough for the Georgia legislature to empanel the 22-member\nFuture of Forestry Study Committee, which met in Valdosta last week. If it\nfinds the need for corrective legislation, the committee is to make its\nrecommendation by year’s end, in time for next year’s General Assembly\nto take action.\n<\/blockquote>\nThe article goes on to give the main reasons as foreign competition\nand development around Atlanta and on the coast.\nThis was before the big economic downturn, which saw timber prices drop.\nThe foreign competition is partly from eucalyptus trees grown\nin South America, which has led to another forestry issue,\n\nBioengineered Eucalyptus to Replace Pine Trees?<\/a>\nThe bioengineering is to keep the eucalyptus from reproducing naturally.\nHow exactly that’s supposed to work reliably if many thousands of acres\nof such trees get planted in Georgia is not clear.\nPlus they’d be a greater fire risk.\nAnd they grow faster by using more water, which is not something\nwe need on top of the Floridian Aquifer.\n
\nSo the forestry industry in Georgia is seeking new markets.\nTo quote\n\nWesley Langdale from September
2001<\/strike> 2010:<\/a>\n\n“My name is Wesley Langdale.\nI am the Chairman of the Board of the Georgia Forestry Commission,\na member of the board of the Georgia Forestry Association,\nand President of the Langdale Company….”\n\n“What will be the new markets for trees in the coming decades?\nWe can only begin to imagine the possiblities that lie ahead.\nToday we’re seeing the beginning of the next\nemerging market for the forest.\nGeorgia’s timber harvests produce an average of six million\ngreen tons of logging residues annually.\nMuch of this can be collected to produce bioenergy.\nAlready we are turning biomass from the forest floor and residue\nfrom forest product manufacturing into energy to more efficiently power our manufacturing facilities.\n
\n“Georgia is a leader in the emerging bioenergy industry.\nWe rank third in the nation for potential biomass energy.\nGeorgia has more than $2 billion worth of active renewable\nenergy-related projects that are projected to drive nearly\n$5 billion dollars into the state’s economy over the next 10 years —\nand add an additional 2,000 jobs within the new facilities and\nforestry operations to support them by 2015.”\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nHowever, since then,\nthere has since been this year’s research showing that\n\nGeorgia forests worth more standing than incinerated<\/a>,\nto the tune of $37 billion annually for essential ecosytem services\nvs. $28 billion from the traditional wood products industry.\nThat research was announced with great fanfare, and the VDT quoted\nWesley Langdale, saying among other things:\n
\n“We know that the forests have to be in place to recharge the aquifer….”\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\n\nThe Langdale Company<\/a>, of which Wesley Langdale is the CEO,\nis the largest private landowner east of the Mississippi;\nit is headquartered in Valdosta, Georgia.\nAs\n\nanother Langdale puts it:<\/a>\n
\n“The Langdale Company is the largest fully integrated, privately held forest products company east of the Mississippi River.”\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n
<\/a>\nLangdale was participating in the announcement\n\nas Chairman<\/a> of the\n\nGeorgia Forestry Commission<\/a> (GFC),\nwhich is the official state agency for forestry.\n
\nLangdale remarked that the study was commissioned by the\n\nGeorgia Forestry Foundation<\/a>,\nwhose website is part of that of the private organization\n\n
<\/a>\n\nGeorgia Forestry Association<\/a> (GFA),\nof which Wesley Langdale\n\nis a board member.<\/a>\n(As I have remarked before, I grow pine trees and I’m a member of GFA.)\n
\nWe already knew\n\nThe Jobs are in the Trees: Reforestation.<\/a>\nThat’s twice as many jobs as for biomass.\n
\nAnd since then we’ve seen that\n\ncarbon trading could be big business in Georgia.<\/a>\nPower companies can pay forest owners to keep land in forests.\nThat’s not as good as getting rid of coal plants, but it’s\nbetter than having both coal plants and deforestation.\n