Georgia Focus - GA Forestry Comm

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to Georgia Focus. I'm John Clark on the Georgia
and Use Network. The Georgia Forestry Commission provides leadership services
and educational resources for landowners, communities, and other agencies. Georgia
is the number one state in forestry in the nation,
conserving twenty four million acres of forest. Here to talk
about forestry in Georgia is Johnny Sabo, Director and the

(00:32):
State Forestry Commissioner of Georgia. Well, Johnny, good to meet you.

Speaker 2 (00:37):
To meet you as well.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
It's really good to meet you because I'm a tree.

Speaker 2 (00:40):
Farmer, outstanding, always happy to meet a tree farmer.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
I'm always happy to meet you too.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
So it is.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
You know, it's remarkable that we talk about trees and
there's so many trees out there, but there's so many
people like me who have small areas of land that
we can inherited or we got somehow and we're use
them for trees. But so many, so many people don't
do it correct.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
Correct. First off, I just want to say thank you
for for what you do. I you know, we were
talking a little bit before started the show, right, I
think fifty two acres A small tree farmer and from
a Georgia Forestry commissioned perspective. You know, I feel like
we're truly here to serve the industry, but really to
serve the landowners and the small landowners. So you know,
everything we do really centers around people like yourself. So

(01:28):
thank you for that.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, it's my pleasure and I really appreciate it when
I sold it too, so I like that too. But
I planted again. There we go.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Good stuff.

Speaker 1 (01:38):
It's it's really it's really amazing to watch it work,
and uh, you know, it's a it's an amazing job.
It has an amazing job.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
For you, very very warning job. You know, when when
you when you do something, when you feel like you're
being good stewards of the land and working hard for
others right being, being a good servant of others in
the land, it's an extremely rewarding job.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Yeah, what's where's your background?

Speaker 2 (02:04):
So I am a forester, grew up in rural South Carolina,
went to Clemson University, and don't hold us against me,
but we've spent about, you know, twenty years in state
government in emergency management, wild land fire and traditional forestry.
So my background has kind of crossed all the thresholds

(02:24):
from really everything that we do with the Forestry Commission.

Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, so when Hurricane Helene hit last year, you really
prepared for that. Now you having having to fix a
lot of things up. I was coming through Middle Georgia
the other day and I saw some just wasted land.
Are you still trying to cover that recover from that?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Absolutely? So, you know, September twenty sixth with our one
year anniversary, right, and one of the things that we
look at first is a salvage operations that happened for
pine timber. You know, our numbers show we salvaged about
thirty percent of the of the pine that was on
the ground, discounting all the hard woods, the swamps the bottom.

(03:08):
So you know, if you flip that reverse, that's still
seventy percent of the pine that's still on the ground
and the vast majority of hard woods that are just
now starting on salvage, and so there's a lot of
fuel that's that's going to be there and be there
for quite some time. Clean Up Unfortunately, after a storm
like Colleen takes years. I mean it's a you know,

(03:30):
four to six year process easy. It does not happen overnight.

Speaker 1 (03:33):
And I want to give you guys credit for really
jumping in there and doing it. It's so you see,
you're doing the omens work. So it's a big work.

Speaker 2 (03:42):
Thank you huge well. That that's a I have the
pleasure to work with an outstanding team, so they that
they are truly humble servants and they were they were
happy and eager to help.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
So they're still out there now cleaning up to some degree,
I'm like correct.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
So we were rewarded this past assembly some funds to
help do fire line breaks right for landowners to re
establish those fire lines, and they serve multiple fronts. One
from our perspective, they help us pre establish fire line
so that if we do have a fire and that
that type of down debris, you know, we have places

(04:20):
we can automatically make a stand, you know, and from
a land inner perspective, it helps them gain access to
their property. And so we are just now really starting
to complete that mission. Our guys and girls have been
on the ground every day doing fire line clean up, restoration,
are foresters. They will be out there for quite some

(04:40):
time working with landowners doing general advices, riding management plans,
helping them getting cast share and kind of get back
on their feet.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
Now, if you're if it's just somebody out there now
you probably you've already talked to somebody. Probably if you
haven't talked to somebody, you should talk to Georgia Fireshooting Mission.

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Right, yeah, absolutely, so our foresters we're a good go
between and just general advice, right, so we can help
steer you in the right direction depending on your management objectives.
You know, so if you say I want to maximize
temper revenue or I'm here for the wildlife, you know,
we can help kind of steering you some direction, potentially
find you some some available funds we call them cost

(05:17):
share funds to help get that pride completed. And then
you know, if you want to go further in depth,
guide you to a consulting forester who does that for
a living, to work with one on one.

Speaker 1 (05:29):
And and you your your website has the people on
there to contact by county and things like.

Speaker 2 (05:35):
That, right right, correct, You can go to GA threes
dot org and look it up by your county and
find your forester.

Speaker 1 (05:40):
And now now I noticed it. When you start to
find somebody that they will furnish a list for you
of who do you can call it in your area,
Who's who they recommend?

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Correct? Great? Yeah, So I can't ever just give you
one name, but I can give you a list of
names that will service your area.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Okay. So I want people to realize that that go
through the Georgia Farsity Commission and you'll get the right person.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's just absolutely our goal is for you to be
a happy landowner, and we want to keep keep force
to acres forced it, especially after something like Aleen, where
we know typically land conversion becomes a factor and so
you know, land owners are going to do what economically
makes sense for them to do, and so we want

(06:24):
to help them arrive at that decision to replant.

Speaker 1 (06:28):
Because you know, you're looking at such a long process
before you planet. It grows and grows and as to
go for years. Some of those people really got hurt bad,
didn't they?

Speaker 2 (06:39):
They did, they did, and that is where the block
grant program is going to roll out. So the Georgia's
Department of Agriculture, led by Commissioner Harper, has done an
outstanding job working with USDA securing funds and that release
just came out. Forgive me, I forgot the number off
the top of my head. I think it was a
little over five hundred and thirty million maybe, and timber

(07:03):
is a piece of that. So in that timber, that
will be the crop loss portion that's not readily available
for timber. Insurance isn't really available for timber. So that
that crop loss payment from the block grant program that
is to help you kind of get started recovering. That
is like if you had cut your trees a day
before Helene, what you had got paid for them. You know,

(07:25):
our goal is to try to maximize that as much
as possible. It'll never be one hundred percent, but it's
it's trying to maximize that loss as much as we
possibly can.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Yeah, now you're on the Governor's Special task Force. Now
you you leave the task force, talk about what your
what your gold is, and what you're paid to do,
what you've done so far?

Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, thank you. So I think it's first fourth while
to mention that that we've had a loss of industry
in this state. Right when we think about mill and
cedar springs down in Early County several months ago, down
to the recent announcement of the mills in Savannah and
ice Boro. When we look at that holistically, that is
a lot of available wood now that we are not

(08:09):
able to move. Georgia was already growing fifty percent more
wood than we utilize, right, so our shelves were well stocked,
so to say. And now we have these huge pulping
paper type industries. But we've created a loss of jobs.
When we think about the direct, the indirect, even the
induce we're talking about over six thousand jobs in total,

(08:32):
two point nine billion hit to the economy. And so
that's that's no small task. Pulping paper prices they went
from around just say eighteen dollars a ton in that
southeast corner pre Healene, you know, to now maybe two
dollars and right, because there's no market, there's no competition,
and so it creates that outcome for landowners. But ultimately

(08:57):
we look down a road, it creates a bad outcome
for forest else when we start talking about southern pine
bew to infestations, wildfire emergency response, different factors like that.
And then back to that economic availability for landowners. Is
it worthwhile to replanted in trees if there's no market
for the trees? Right? So, so the Governor's task force
is really aimed at, how do we address all those factors,

(09:18):
how do we look at it holistically, how do we
make sure we have the right people at the table,
and how do we drive the ball four to do
things like attract new industry? Are there things we can
do you know immediately that that may may help a
little bit of release some of the pressure, if you will.
So those those are the sorts of things we're tackling.

(09:40):
It's it's an outstanding organization. Have everybody from Apartment of Agriculture,
the Rule Center, Georgia Forestry Association, Georgia Tech UGA. I
know I'm gonna leave somebody off this list of some
danger in doing that. Yeah, yeah, GFA. So really just
a lot of the people who are taking a broad

(10:02):
approach looked at us and and it's it's hard, right,
There's gonna be some hard decisions made. But the end
of the day, our our goal was to attract new industry.
Georgia Economic Development they're a huge player in this, but
attract new industry. And and you know, George's number one
four US. You're sat in the nation. I don't want
to lose that.

Speaker 1 (10:20):
Title on that. And so the mills they close essentially
because of Hurricane here Heleen no I think.

Speaker 2 (10:28):
There's more to it than that. Some of it's just
the mills are getting old. We we haven't built a
new pulp and paper mill in this country since the
early eighties. There's a lot of you know, costs and
regulations and different things. The market seems to be moving
overseas to countries like Brazil, and there's a there's a
lot of factors that play there. It's not quite a

(10:49):
straight line. But at the end of the day, are
our mills are just getting old and dated and the
cost to repair them. Once again, the economics aren't lining up.
So how do we how do we look down the road,
how do we create markets for biofuels and bio energy?
You know, when we think about it here from you

(11:09):
know where we're sitting in the middle of Atlanta, right,
you know, why is that important to us here? You know,
I'm all about a circular economy and being sustainable, right,
Like I want my kid to grow in a healthy
environment where we appreciate you know, nature and its forest
and everything else. Well, if we can create sustainable fuels,
which once again we are over fifty percent stocked on

(11:32):
our forest anyway, you know, through products like trees, you know,
versus something that's not sustainable, then why not all right,
let let's let's go get it. And so that's to me,
that's the next evolution of forestry. You'll see sometimes are
ahead of us a little bit in Europe, especially some

(11:53):
of the Scandinavian countries doing different things like that pellets.
You know, we make a lot of wood pellets. There
are number one export going out of Savannah and that's
all going over there, and they're using pellets to burn
clean energy. Right, so you're you're having you know, you're
having trees cut down in Georgia haul to a mill,

(12:14):
pellets made being put on a container ship shipped over
to Scandinavian countries to Europe, and they're they're essentially making
clean energy with it that it's from a renewable source. Right,
So if they can do it and we can do
all those shipping costs, why not why can't we do
that here?

Speaker 1 (12:33):
So is right now it's pulpwood viable. Do you do
you get it? If you've selled like ten years, you're
cutting down your trees, can you sell it for pope
wood to get it out of the way those other
trees so they can grow and things like that.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
You still can, but there's just not as large as
a market as or once was. Like I said, Southeast
Georgia was the wood basket of the world, not just
the Southeast, and so that that dynamic has shifted the
little bit and we have to figure out how to
get that back. But then if we think about the
state holistically, if you get into say the northeast corner

(13:07):
of Georgia, you know, the markets have been suppressed up
here for quite some time. So how do we attract
industry up to here to make it more viable for landowners.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
Let's talk about it in like, for example, you mentioned Atlanta.
People don't think there are a lot of trees Atlanta.
There are a lot of trees in Atlanta, city of trees,
right right, trees, and they don't think about that. But
then you look in North Georgia, South Georgia. Everywhere's trees
and it's great, it's wonderful. But people need to realize
that that those trees are doing something for the state

(13:40):
of Georgia.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
That's right. I mean on top of you know, I
always called it goods from the woods, right, so on
top of everything from the lumber to build our houses
to the terpenes from wood, that's what you used to
you know, do a lot of different things that if
you like a sprite, I hate to tell you that's
not lemons in there, right, that's terpenes from woods that
makes flavor and so yeah. And but on top of that,

(14:05):
it's it's the carbon sequestration, right it. I mean things
that our force have been doing force for years, the
clean air, clean drinking water, all these things that are
important to us, you know as humans in society. Our
force naturally do that. And if we lose, if we
lose healthy markets, then we start losing healthy forests, and

(14:26):
we lose all this other ecosystem benefits that all us
Georgians enjoy from it. Right.

Speaker 1 (14:31):
And and also those those when you cut those trees down,
you replenish it by planning them again.

Speaker 2 (14:37):
Exactly Sure people know that it is. I mean, I mean,
you know when we talk about you know, trees within
the city and the urban forest, that's a little bit different,
right in discussion we're having in and you know, outside
of Atlanta. And I mean those trees are a crop.
It's it's really no different than corn, right, there are

(14:57):
a crop. It's just a longer rotation, but we do
it sustainably. I mean, of course we want to do that.
We don't want to put ourselves out of business, and
and we try to be very good stewarts of the
of the environment.

Speaker 1 (15:10):
Yeah, it is now in Atlanta. When you cut down trees,
they do keep those trees and take them off somewhere,
sell them. They do do that, didn't they.

Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah. So one of our board members I'm aware of,
she actually has a mill and l a j and
she makes specialty cut lumber a lot of times just
to you know, larger logs and cuts and different things
you'll see, I want to say, at one point in time,
and she may still be a lot of the times
when you'd walk in National Parks and you just see

(15:40):
these like almost massive looking log cabins, some of that
lumber was coming from her. But one of her main
main importers of lumber is actually coming from Atlanta, either
new neighborhood's being built or the urban trees being recycled
in different things going to her meal to cut these
logs and be reused.

Speaker 1 (15:59):
Wow. So that's that's that's Atlanta trees at work.

Speaker 2 (16:02):
Exactly, Atlanta trees at work. I like it.

Speaker 1 (16:05):
I just want everybody to know that they you know,
people don't when they realize it how many things they
have that are made with wood. Would just we use
everything your house first of all, and people don't realize
that going those trees and reding those trees keeps it.

Speaker 2 (16:24):
Sustainable exactly, that that's a very important part of it.
I would encourage anybody to start looking up, you know,
what they have in our house and what they use
every day that's made from wood. And we think about
Salos fiber and what that is, and so it's it's
how do we how do we continue to shore ensure
you know, not just Georgia, but the nation's fiber supply. Right.

(16:46):
I think it's an easy message when we talk about
we have to ensure that we have the food supply
that we need for the nation, and fiber often gets overlooked,
but it's just as much an important part of who
we are in our society.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
That's why I like to encourage, you know, small landowners
to don't distantly land sit there, Well, what am I
going to do? Put trees on it? There? You go,
that's the cleasiest thing to do.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
Ye, Yep, it's uh and and once again it's they
have questions about, you know, how to start, what type
of trees, anything, Please reach out to the Georgia Forestart Commission.
We were happy to happy to send somebody and work
with you.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah, you really are, you really are. I tell you,
you really do. I just tell you. If you get
a small property, put trees on there. Just do that.
You don't let us sit there. But then you get
big property. Now let's talk about because now you right
across the hinterlands and the wild lands of Georgia and
you're out in the middle of nowhere, all of a sudden,
there's trees everywhere, and they're they're planting roads. To me,

(17:47):
I like it, but talk about that. I don't think
people realize what that is when they have so many trees,
Like anywhere you go on the side, both sides of
the roads, your trees, trees, trees. About what those are?

Speaker 2 (18:01):
Yeah? So those you know, those pine plantations as we
call them, I mean they're planted in rows and a
lot of that is specifically for ease of planting and
then ease of harvesting. So when we come in typically
we'll do a first thinning. So you want to go
in between the rows and maybe select out some of
the weaker trees that are ready to go, and you know,
let your straighter, stronger trees continue to grow up for

(18:23):
higher value, for for salt timber, for you know, maybe
poles or anything like that. But it's it's once again,
it's back to a farming practice, right, Like we don't
we don't see a farmer throw out you know, corn
seeds all over the place, and it's just you know,
there's no rhyme or reason to it. So it's it's
the same thing for pine trees really, but it esthetically,

(18:46):
especially after we get through that first thinning, we're able
to do it in a way that kind of mimics it.
And the roads start disappearing. And when I say mimic, sorry,
mimicked nature. And the roads start disappearing, and then you
start to see just a a very well managed forest.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Very well managed. Yeah. I love I just love looking
at them. The burn restrictions were lifted on October first.
Talk about that what the burn restrictions are.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
So the burn restrictions were put in place. Sorry I
forget when, but before before my time, we're gonna go
with that one. Yeah, before my time, and essentially that
had to do with air quality regulations and especially center
around Atlanta and the and the counties that surround Atlanta.
Typically in the summer months and the hotter months, you know, one,

(19:39):
we have more people outside, there is more car traffic,
there's different things like that happening. But but we have
atmospheric conditions that don't allow for smoke to lift quite
as well it does in the winter months. So in
the winter months, you know that those conditions are lessons
are lifted. And then uh, really we start. We started
our prescribe fire season. Now prestrivee fire is a year

(20:01):
round process, but our dormance season burning from January February
into March, that is that is peat prescribe burn season
for us.

Speaker 1 (20:12):
So that's a good time to do it.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Back then, absolutely, and once again, if you've never done
that before, please don't lit a match. Call somebody a
professional to come out and advise you and work with
you some. But prescribe fire is the best management tool
and the most cost efficient management tool that land managers have,
and Georgia has a very robust prescribe fire program. We

(20:37):
also run a lot of wildfire so I think last
year we were just shy of four thousand wildfires. But
a very successful and robust prescribe fire program helps lessen
the impacts of crastrophic wildfires. Right, So if we do
get a wildfire and somewhere that's spend burned and you
know a year or two ago, it's less likely to

(20:58):
impact you know, publics or have catastrophic events and something
that's never been burned before.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Right, because they know what they're doing. Get them, because
they know what they're doing. You know, just there's a reason,
there's a method to the madness.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
They know what they're doing, and they love it. They
absolutely love it.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
Now some of wildfires you don't think about those much,
but that you do have them throughout Georgia.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
Yes, absolutely. Like I said, last year, we were just shy,
I think of four thousand, four thousand wildfires. March first,
last year we had a one hundred and twenty two wildfires,
which was the second highest day in the last fifteen years.
I believe in about a thirty day timeframe, we ran

(21:48):
about twelve hundred wildfires right there and right there kind
of end of winter, beginning of spring. So we actually
do have a lot of wildfires in Georgia. One thing
that we pride ourselves on with Orge Forester Commission is
our average fire size is between five and six acres
and when we look at it from a five year
average and then our average response time including days, weekends, holidays, nights,

(22:13):
it's twenty six minutes from the time we get to
call to the time we're on scene suppressing the fire.
And so we're very aggressive. We try to put a
lot of emphasis on firefighter safety but also public safety
and that starts with a very aggressive wildfire program and
how we attack, how we train, essentially just our identity

(22:34):
as an organization of being emergery responders.

Speaker 1 (22:37):
You have have a lot of experience in emergency response.
So talk about tad some how do you help, how
do you help?

Speaker 2 (22:45):
How do you help with their merchery?

Speaker 1 (22:46):
How do you help them? Yeah, how do you help
with mergers of science?

Speaker 2 (22:48):
So the first thing is one, you know, being an
advocate for Prescribe fire is a big piece of that too.
There's things that you can do, you know, around your house,
especially if you live and what we call the wildland
urban interface, So if your home backs up to woods,
I want to say it's something like eighty four percent
of Georgians or in what we designate as a wildland

(23:11):
urban interface. So when we think about our population that
you know, the majority of our population lives in an
area that could be a threat from a wildfire. There's
things you can do as a home owner. Two protect
against that. One has some defensible space, so at least
thirty foot around your house, you know, get all the

(23:33):
pine needles and leaves out of your gutters. You know,
remove flammables from the edge of your house. Don't don't
stack your gas cans and paint cans right up underneath
your front porch, right, stuff like that. And if you
ever want to know more about that, there's a program
called Firewise, and I believe it's firewise dot org that
anybody can go to and look at. And that's just
some very good general information for Landers on what they

(23:55):
can do and that helps us. So when we come
in and we're working structured apartments and we're trying to
figure out where to make our stand, what house do
we have to protect, what houses already protected itself. That
really creates a much safer environment for the firefighters.

Speaker 1 (24:11):
Thank you so much for coming on today and talking
to us about this. I could talk to you for hours,
but we have.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
A yeah, happy too happy to I enjoy this.

Speaker 1 (24:20):
But where's the best place for to look of Georgia FARSTI.

Speaker 2 (24:24):
I mean, we're we're all over, you know, one hundred
and fifty nine counties in the state. We have one
hundred and one offices, so usually we're not going to
be off the main drag. We're kind of tucked in
a back corner somewhere, but that's okay. I'm pretty sure
our staff prefers it that way any anyhow. But really,
I would say just start online gatrees dot org. Find

(24:45):
your nearest office. There'll be an address. It'll be your forester,
you know, a chief ranger. That's our first line fire
supervisors within the counties.

Speaker 1 (24:55):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Some counties are covered by one unit. Some counties that
may be two or three counties together and a single
unit covers them. But like I said, one hundred and
fifty nine counties and we have one hundred and one
offices across the state, so we're everywhere.

Speaker 1 (25:10):
You got it, Johnny, thank you so much for coming
on today. I appreciate sir, thank you very much. That's
Johnny Sabo. He's a director and state Forestry Commissioner for Georgia.
You can find out more about them at gatrees dot org.
For questions or comments on today's program, you can email me,
John Clark at Georgiannewsnetwork dot com. Thanks for listening, I'll

(25:30):
talk to you next week right here in your favorite
local radio station on Georgia Focus