The Rural Voice, 1996-10, Page 26Goodbye to free
advice
MNRs cutbacks have thrown forestry experts out
of work but it may be worth the money to pay
them as private consultants for the advice they
used to give you free.
Story and photos by Keith Roulston
22 THE RURAL VOICE
Hardwood timber prices are at
an all-time high and woodlot
owners are being approached
by buyers with offers that often
seem to farmers like found money.
Sometimes a woodlot owner will be
approached by two or three buyers
with dramatically different estimates
of the timber value. How does a
woodlot owner get advice on the real
value of his timber?
Well, in this day and age of
provincial government cuts, he or she
definitely can't turn to the traditional
advisors at the Ministry of Natural
Resources. Ron Bennett, area
supervisor for the Huron/Perth
District at Wingham, says that this
spring's round of budget cuts left his
office without staff to provide advice.
There still is a district forester and a
forest technician based at the
Cambridge office, but given that they
must cover an area from Niagara
Falls to Lake Huron, they aren't
going to be able to provide much
advice to individual farmers, he said.
Marvin Smith says it's "untimely"
that MNR cutbacks have stripped the
ministry of the ability to provide
advice for landowners at a time when
timber prices are high. "It can
literally mean thousands of dollars
between good approaches and bad,"
Smith said.
Smith knows first hand about the
MNR cuts. He had worked 21 years
for the MNR's Wingham office and
when the fateful day of last May 16
arrived, he felt his job was secure. He
knew that the ministry was moving
away from forestry management but
felt that as a professional forester
with a university degree in forestry,
he would be spared the cuts that
forestry technicians were facing.
After all, he reasoned, the MNR had
signed contracts for management of
the Huron County Forests, with
several conservation authorities in
the region and with a large number of
landowners. Somebody had to be left
to do that work. So it came as a
shock when Smith received his
termination along with many others
(the Wingham office which has had
its own large headquarters has been
reduced so much it will now share
space with the Clinton OMAFRA
staff).
Smith now operates his own
private consulting service offering a