Iowa woodland owners pledge to keep advocating for the Forest Reserve Program

Tim Meyer’s interest in the outdoors goes back decades, beginning with hunting. In 1987, he bought 115 acres of land in Davis County in southern Iowa. It was on that land that his love of the outdoors — and his interest in developing a healthy forest — grew.

Today, that property has grown to 384 acres, which includes 320 acres of forest. Last year, Meyer’s knowledge and care for trees was honored when he and his wife, Pam Goschke, were named Iowa’s Outstanding Tree Farmers by the Iowa Tree Farm Committee.

The award honored Meyer’s work fostering woodlands across the state, but learning the ways of tending to woodlands wasn’t always easy.

“I didn't realize how cruel nature can be,” said Meyer, who lives in Iowa County. “If you leave a forest unmanaged, there's really a war going on out there in the forest because, you know, bad trees outgrow good trees.”

Meyer is vice president of the Iowa Woodland Owners Association, a nonprofit that works to encourage wise woodland management techniques, educate others on the importance of healthy woodlands in Iowa, and strengthen appreciation for forestry across the state.

One of the priorities of the nonprofit has been to expand its educational efforts across the state to teach Iowans the importance of tending to woodlands and what goes into maintaining the land.

This comes in the wake of legislation that has sought to change or eliminate Iowa’s Forest Reserve program, which provides a property tax exemption for eligible woodland owners.

The Forest Reserve Program is a tax exemption program, enacted in 1906, that is intended to incentivize woodland owners to maintain their land.

To qualify for the program’s exemption, eligible woodland owners must have at least two contiguous acres of woodland, cannot have fewer than 200 growing trees per acre, cannot have grazing on the land and cannot make a profit off the land.

A bill introduced in the Iowa Legislature this year — Senate File 633 — would have created a fee structure for landowners whose property is in the Forest and Fruit Tree Reserve program. The fees would have been calculated based on where a landowner lives in relation to their woodlands.

The bill passed in the Senate, but did not move through the Iowa House.

Meyer said in his eight years on the Iowa Woodland Owners Association board, bills to modify the program “in some fashion” have come up the in the legislature each year.

Paul Millice is a current board member of the Association, serving as the legislative liaison. He also has been a past president of the board.

Millice said he expects the legislature will continue to look at the Forest Reserve Act.

“It is being pushed by some special interest groups, you know the same special interest groups that receive the majority share of state subsidies,” Millice said.

Meyer said he and his fellow board members expect bills will be filed next year, so they’re getting their “ducks in a row” and focusing on educating the public.

“I think a lot of the politicians and general public don't really know how much it takes to properly manage (woodlands) with the invasives and the pests and all the stuff that are going on out there,” Meyer said. “I didn’t know until I really got more involved in Woodland Owners.”

Millice — who has owned a six-acre plot of woodlands in Johnson County since 2002 — said he was surprised the legislature didn't make any changes to the program because Iowa Republican lawmakers hold a supermajority in both cambers.

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“The way it stands is that SF 633, which was passed by the Senate and sent to the House, becomes unfinished business and it only needs to go through committee approval and then on to a full house vote in the next legislative session,” he said.

Millice echoed Meyer’s belief that more forestry education is needed throughout the state so lawmakers and the public understand the importance of the program.

“Many Iowans that don't own or manage timber or woodlands don't know or realize that keeping one's woodlands/timber going requires quite a bit of attention,” he said. “Successional growth is when your invasives and shade tolerant species take over and they will choke out your understory and thus prevent any natural regeneration of your desired species such as the oaks.”

In an effort to educate, Millice said the Association conducts two field days each year. They bring in experts from the Iowa Department of Natural Resources to help Iowans understand the importance of proper timber and woodland practices.

He said the Association also publishes four newsletters each year for its membership. The publications cover a variety of forestry topics.

The Forest Reserve Program “is one of the only incentives in the state to keep land forested,” said Tim Krauss, a member of the Woodland Owners Association.

Krauss said that with Iowa already being an agriculture-dominated state, without protections, forested areas likely would be converted to agricultural land.

“There are little programs in Iowa to support keeping lands in forest. Some land owners will be forced to make some kind of an income off this land, which could then make them convert the land to agriculture or they may have to turn to unsustainable logging practices,” he said.

Krauss works for Amana Forestry in Amana, which is the largest privately-held forest in the state.

“Even a small tax on each acre would make a significant dent in our budget,” Krauss said. “This would mean that we would have to change our sustainable practices for the worst. With the small amount of revenue that this tax would produce, the amount of time that our state has spent, is spending and would spend on it seems ridiculous.”

Olivia Cohen covers energy and environment for The Gazette and is a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues.

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Comments: olivia.cohen@thegazette.com