Scholarship Contest Rules

By Rex Boner and Wesley Langdale


Clean air. Clean Water. Good jobs. Revenue to support education. Our challenge is balancing these pressing issues to sustain economic growth and quality of life. An often overlooked piece of this sustainability equation in Georgia is 22 million acres of commercial timberland owned by tens of thousands of private landowners.

Ninety-two percent of Georgia’s forests, covering two-thirds of the state, are privately owned. That land generates thousands of jobs and millions of dollars of revenue supporting government services. Georgia’s working forests also clean and cool our rivers and streams, consume and store carbon, provide habitat for a great diversity of wildlife, and surround us with scenic beauty.

Now, thanks to a just-finished University of Georgia study, we know that the value of these ecosystem services provided by privately owned forestland is more than $37.6 billion a year.

In these economic times, with limited public funds for forestland conservation, the role of private forest landowners is more important than ever. We want landowners to keep their land in forest production, providing ecosystem services to benefit Georgians and maintaining the state’s competitiveness in domestic and global forest product markets. But private woodlands — and with them our capacity to safeguard precious resources such as clean water — are shrinking.

Georgia’s working forests have not been here forever, and they don’t take care of themselves. Georgia’s private forest landowners must have economic incentive to grow, harvest and sell trees if they are going to continue to actively manage this renewable resource. Those landowners and the state’s forest industries face pressure today from growing global competition, local property taxes not reflective of the actual use of the land, and encroaching urban and suburban development. We need public policy that keeps the working forest working for us all, shaped by respect for private property rights, reasonable environmental protection requirements, and — most importantly — realistic tax policy.

For more than a century, Georgia’s most plentiful, renewable, natural resource — trees — has been turned into jobs and tax dollars. For generations the forestry industry has sustainably managed Georgia’s forestlands to produce turpentine, lumber, poles, posts, panels — and today an array of more than 5,000 forest products. The state’s forest-related businesses employ 118,423 Georgians in its second-largest industry. These manufacturing, technical and research jobs are among Georgia’s most sophisticated and highly compensated. The top two export commodities from Georgia’s ports in Savannah and Brunswick are wood pulp and paper/paperboard. Today, Georgia’s forest product manufacturers annually inject $27.2 billion into the state’s economy.

There is more on the horizon: Georgia is a leader in the emerging bio-energy industry, ranking first in the nation in announced biomass energy projects. Bio-energy projects alone have the potential to create thousands of additional jobs within new facilities and forestry operations to support them within the next 10 years.

Choices are being made today that will impact the amount of land that remains in forest cover. Without respect for private property rights, reasonable environmental protection requirements and realistic tax policy, Georgia will not continue to benefit from the clean air, clean water, jobs and recreation the forests provide.

Rex Boner is vice president of and the Southeast representative for The Conservation Fund. Wesley Langdale is the president of the Langdale Company in Valdosta and the Chairman of the Board of the Georgia Forestry Commission.

“We are pleased to partner with Hamilton County as it considers becoming the first community to host an ADAGE renewable energy facility. We are committed to working with the people of Hamilton County to develop a project that benefits the whole community. The state-of-the-art ADAGE biopower facility provides a reliable source of electric energy generation for states looking to rapidly increase energy production using renewable fuels,” said Reed Wills, President of ADAGE.

The Hamilton County biopower facility will create approximately 400 jobs during construction and 125 facility and fuel-related jobs during operation, adding significantly to local economic activity.

“We are extremely excited that ADAGE has selected Hamilton County for their first biomass energy plant. It will have a huge economic impact on our local economy and will supply much needed employment opportunities at the generating facility and in the timber industry as well. This is a clean and renewable source of electricity and the Board of County Commissioners and the Economic Development Authority are supportive and stand ready to assist ADAGE in making this project become a reality,” said Danny Johnson, Hamilton County Coordinator.

ADAGE has achieved several key project milestones, including securing rights to a 215-acre site in Hamilton County and submitting applications for state environmental permits. ADAGE has entered into confidentiality agreements and non-binding letters of intent, and is in exclusive negotiations with, JEA, an electric utility serving the Jacksonville area, for the potential purchase of the power from the facility, and The Langdale Company for the supply of waste wood to the project.

“Renewable energy is the next frontier for the working forest, which has been creating jobs and cleaning our air and water for generations,” said Wesley Langdale, President of The Langdale Company. “Working with partners such as AREVA and Duke Energy gives our 115-year-old company confidence in the viability and sustainability of the project.” Langdale and ADAGE made this announcement during the Forest Landowners Association annual conference in Amelia Island.

Several important steps remain before construction work could commence on the project, including obtaining final permit approvals, entering into binding power purchase and fuel supply agreements, receipt of certain state and local incentives related to the proposed investment and job creation, and consummation of final financing arrangements for the project. Once completed, the ADAGE facility will provide clean, reliable electricity for approximately 40,000 households. Biopower has many advantages over traditional power sources because it is carbon neutral, and it can be a major factor in helping power companies meet their renewable portfolio standard obligations or goals.

“This is an important first step for ADAGE as it moves forward with its plan to develop a series of biopower facilities using state-of-the-art technology throughout the United States. These plants can help Americans meet their electricity demand with a local, dependable and renewable energy source,” said Jim Rogers, CEO of Duke Energy.

In addition to energy and economic benefits, the development of these facilities by ADAGE and its partners will meet important sustainability goals.

“The first ADAGE plant when completed will represent significant progress towards the fulfillment of the environmental commitments Duke Energy and AREVA made at the formation of this partnership at the Clinton Global Initiative last year. We remain dedicated to the promise of all carbon-free sources to produce clean air energy and protect the planet,” said Anne Lauvergeon, CEO of AREVA.