\nA University of Georgia researcher has found that Georgia\u2019s forestlands\nprovide essential ecosystem services to the state worth an estimated\n$37 billion annually.\n\nThis is in addition to the value of timber, forest products and\nrecreation. This is the first time these indirect benefits of Georgia\u2019s\nprivate forests have been estimated.\n<\/blockquote>\nThat’s substantially more than the $28 billion annually from the\nconventional wood-products industry.\n
\nWhat are these ecosystem services?\n\n\n
\nRebecca Moore, an assistant professor in the Warnell School of Forestry\nand Natural Resources, studied the 22 million acres of privately-owned\nforestland in Georgia to estimate the benefits of water filtration,\ncarbon storage, wildlife habitat and aesthetics.\n\n“People value these things,” Moore said, “but because they aren\u2019t\nlike other goods in that people don\u2019t go out and buy them, it\u2019s\ndifficult to estimate just how much we value them. The purpose of our\nresearch was to do just that — estimate the value of the ecosystem\nservices provided by private forests in Georgia.”\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nThe \nVDT quotes Wesley Langdale,<\/a> CEO of the Langdale Company, the largest\nlandowner east of the Mississippi:\n
\n“We\u2019ve always known that trees clean our air and our water,\nbut we\u2019ve never really had any hard data to say how much this has\ncontributed. We know that the forests have to be in place to recharge the\naquifer, but how much per acre that contributes to society is something\nwe don\u2019t understand.\n\nLook at what\u2019s happening to our population here in Georgia, with all\nthe new development. If you lose your forest land, what is it worth and\nwhat are the costs to everyone? Hopefully this study will help citizens\nunderstand how important it is to keep our land in working forests. If\nyou harvest a tree, plant another.”\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nAnd a quote from the August Chronicle:<\/a>\n
\n“That’s a staggering number. That’s an amazing number, but that’s a real\nnumber,” said Chuck Leavell, the keyboard player for the Rolling Stones\nand large tree farmer in south Georgia.\n<\/blockquote>\n\nHere’s\nthe actual study.<\/a>\n
\nAugust Chronicle also has this:\n
\nNevertheless, Gov. Nathan Deal, the son of an agriculture teacher, said\nthat considering the $28 billion annual value of Georgia’s wood-products\nindustry, the state should exploit its timberland strengths. He pointed\nout that Georgia is a major exporter of wood pellets to Europe for\nheating and energy.\n\n“I want Georgia to be the leader in the production of biomass,” Deal said.\n<\/blockquote>\n
\nI wonder if he’d heard about this yet?\nGA biomass bubble bursts.<\/a>\n
\n\n
<\/a>\nIt still seems to me that\n\nThe Jobs are in the Trees: Reforestation<\/a>.\n
\n-jsq\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sandi Martin writes in Southeast Farm Press: A University of Georgia researcher has found that Georgia\u2019s forestlands provide essential ecosystem services to the state worth an estimated $37 billion annually. This is in addition to the value of timber, forest products and recreation. This is the first time these indirect benefits of Georgia\u2019s private forests […]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[556,120,141,14,16,740,289,55],"tags":[5042,5041,8745,2206,8801,5040,8701,742,8802,2081,4886,5039,4150,5043],"class_list":["post-2399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-air","category-biomass","category-co2","category-economy","category-environment","category-forestry","category-science","category-water","tag-aesthetics","tag-carbon","tag-co2","tag-ecosystem","tag-forestry","tag-forests","tag-georgia","tag-georgia-forestry-association","tag-gfa","tag-langdale","tag-rebecca-moore","tag-services","tag-wildlife","tag-wood-products"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p585fK-CH","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2399"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2399\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}