At Timbervest we thoroughly understand and strongly support the idea that we must manage our forestland investments in such a way as to balance clients financial goals with the need and desire to preserve our forestlands for future generations.

While our employees and clients know our goal is to maximize returns; they also know it is never at the cost of environmental degradation or unsustainable forestry management. With this in mind, Timbervest has always operated under viable and measurable environmental policies.


What are our policies and how are they measured?

The answer is in three parts:




Timbervest maintains that actions flow from an organization’s core values. Regarding forestry, our strongly held and clearly articulated beliefs based on science, knowledge, and experience, are:

• Forests are living, ever-changing and renewable ecosystems. We assert that biodiversity is necessary for healthy ecosystems and that all stages of forest growth can provide benefits to both society and investors.
  
• Proper management can provide both exceptional returns and preserve the benefits and beauty of our forestlands for future generations.
  
• In summary, our values produce a forest management approach that neither exploits (harvests everything and move to the next location), nor ignores (don’t harvest any trees) our forest resources.
  

At Timbervest, all investment management is directed by qualified professionals. For our professional foresters, every day is Earth Day. Through education and professional experience, foresters are trained environmentalists. They are expected, furthermore, by peers and professional organizations alike, to reflect the highest standards of environmentally responsible behavior in their work. Poor forest stewardship is simply viewed as a breach of professional ethics. Our forestry staff, which consists entirely of university-trained and industry experienced foresters, works diligently to implement our dual goals of forest conservation and effective stewardship.

The BMPs can vary somewhat from state to state, others vary by region. Some of these are very simple while others are extremely complex. But they all are specifically aimed at the mechanics of forestry operations, and addressing the Do’s and Don’ts. This is especially directed to logging and road building, and protecting water quality in creeks and streams.

The SFI is a broad system of principles, objectives and performance measures created by experienced foresters, scientists and conservationists, as well as other involved with the industry, that integrates the continual growth and harvesting of trees and the long-standing protection of our wildlife, our plants, our soil and our water quality. SFI promotes and encourages the reforestation of forestland. This practice is a proven method to keep forests healthy allowing for sustainable, positive, long-term growth for future generations. The SFI program is based on the premise that responsible environmental practices and sound business decisions can be integrated to the benefit of all shareholders, including landowners, neighbors, customers and the people they all serve.

At Timbervest, we treat Best Management Practices and the Sustainable Forestry Initiative as our minimum standard in our everyday work. Less often, other rules come into play, although rules such as the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act rarely affect our work. When they do come into play, we diligently follow those laws.

An example of this was when the endangered Red Cockaded Woodpecker was observed on one of our properties by a forest consultant. At our expense, we changed our logging plan, painted off the site, and informed federal and state officials, who later visited and studied the area.

We are proud of what we do to protect our water, air and wildlife. Timbervest’s approach also gives extra consideration to special sites such as cemeteries, Indian mounds and waterfalls located on any of our properties. In addition, we will not invest in areas that do not support sustainable forestry, such as tropical rain forests or in locations where we cannot guarantee the health of the forests in which we operate. Since much of the world does not follow many of the best practices used in the United States, we have chosen to restrict our investments to the continental United States. These rules are not burdens; they are opportunities to show our skills and professionalism. We take pride in the fact that our business model succeeds on a proactive versus reactive strategy in terms of environmental stewardship.

In a successful effort to promote environmental stewardship, Timbervest pays close attention to the biodiversity and wildlife on our forestlands, watercourse crossings, reforestation and pesticide use. We manage our forestland in a way that recognizes and protects various ecosystems located on and around our forestland. This proactive approach is designed to maintain the lands biodiversity and the habitat of the wildlife located on our forestland. The land is not the only resource that we set out to protect. Timbervest pays careful attention to the location and installation of any and all watercourse crossings in order to protect the aquatic wildlife and the natural course of the water. While the natural course of timberland management requires harvesting the trees being grown, the process of reforestation is extremely important to us and to the long-term health of the land. Our timberlands are sufficiently regenerated either by natural regeneration or a quality supply of seedlings that are well suited to the conditions that each forestland offers. As the seedlings grow into mature trees, it may become necessary to use pesticide to prevent the loss of growth or early tree mortality. When pesticides are used, the process is done in a manner that is environmentally responsible and safe for everyone involved.

We will do our utmost to manage our natural resources to fill present needs without sacrificing the needs of the future. We will also continue to reassess better ways to manage our businesses, to solve ecological problems, to reduce waste, and to improve the use of our natural resources.

In conclusion, we agree with and accept the constraints placed upon our management. We operate within both the letter and spirit of the laws to protect our resources for future generations, while at the same time providing exceptional returns for our investors.

We truly believe that appropriately managed, we have the rare opportunity to create a win-win outcome for our clients, ourselves, and most importantly, for our children.