North Carolina Division - Appalachian Society of SAF

As most of you know, The NC Division of SAF has committed to addressing the need for improving the NC Forester Registration Law, Chapter 89B of the General Statutes. Reasons outlining the current deficiencies of the law and needed improvements are detailed in the attached items. As shown in the attachments, a primary focus of the proposed change is protection of landowners and their resources by ensuring that individuals offering professional forestry services are qualified to do so and are held equally accountable to established ethical standards. At the same time, this proposal in no way places any restrictions on what landowners choose to do on their own property.

The proposed draft is a result of input from many of you individually and also collectively at SAF chapter, state and APSAF meetings over the past 4 years. The SAF draft has been further refined through involvement with several other groups and agencies to create an effective advancement for forestry in NC while eliminating potential concerns identified in the early drafts.

While creating this improved product has been an extended process, equally challenging will be getting it approved in the legislative arena. Most items introduced as bills in the General Assembly do not get implemented. Primarily those which do become law have strong sponsorship inside the General Assembly in both chambers as well as strong constituency involvement on the outside.

Therefore, if you are interested in seeing that fair and ethical standards are established for those practicing as professional foresters, your involvement is critical.

Three primary areas of action are needed.

First, Farm Bureau, the largest landowner organization in NC, is a potential supporter who could be very helpful with this effort. Its legislative priorities are created from inputs by its county organizations. SAF needs you to contact county Farm Bureau committee members in your area, personally if possible, or at least by phone and explain the value of this change to the FB membership. These committees are working right now on setting priorities, so the quicker the better. Also, if you are a Farm Bureau member, please speak up within the organization.

Secondly, the more specific cases we can document of “so called” foresters taking advantage of landowners , the stronger our justification is. Please send to me specific situations you are aware of which could have been effected by this proposed law change.

Thirdly, as stated above, we will need as much support as possible within the General Assembly. Many of you have contacts, directly or indirectly, that can help with this. Contact your legislators and explain the need for this action. Please let me know of any of them whom you feel will be willing to help with this effort in the next session which begins in January, 2009.

More detail on this issue is included in the attachments. Please review them and share them with others to help make this improvement in the law possible.

Attachments are:

Feel free to contact me if you have questions and please let me know results of your contacts.

Derryl Walden
RF 705
Chair, NC Div SAF Licensing & Registration Committee

Update Sept. 07

The committte has obtained feedback and inputs from other forestry groups working with SAF to revise this Chapter.

To download a copy of the Sept 07 update, right click on the file name and select Save Target As... Then save to your computer. Note: The file is in MS Word format. Changes have been tracked using MS Word's track changes option. If this option is not turned on in your version of MS Word you may not see all of the revisions.

File: NCApSAF_Chapter_89B_draft_Sept07.doc

Update 1/16/07

The committte has obtained feedback and inputs from other forestry groups working with SAF to revise this Chapter.

To download a copy of the 1/16/07 update, right click on the file name and select Save Target As... Then save to your computer. Note: The file is in MS Word format. Changes have been tracked using MS Word's track changes option. If this option is not turned on in your version of MS Word you may not see all of the revisions.

File: Chapter 89B Foresters Jan 16_07 draft.doc

September, 2005

The Licensing and Registration Committee of the NC Division of APSAF has spent extensive time evaluating and revising Chapter 89B of NC General Statutes which addresses registration of foresters in NC. Among factors considered in evaluating the current law were significant input from SAF membership, deficiencies identified by current and past Board of Registration members, review of similar laws in NC and other states, and previous legal inputs on the current law from attorneys at the AG office and the NC Rules Review Commission.

A very broad area of experience in forestry is represented by the SAF committee membership that developed the attached proposal. Members are:

Derryl Walden-chair, retired DFR
Ed Hicks, CF
Rick Hamilton, Extension Forestry
Carlyle Franklin, NCSU
Tony Doster, IPCO
Jim Sitts, Columbia Forest Products
Danny Isom, Squires Timber Co.
Melissa Begley, Urban Forestry-Greensboro
Barry New, DFR
John Monroe,CF

Proposed changes include limiting the practice of professional forestry to those registered or working within the direction of a RF; changing from a criminal law to a civil law; clarifying points related to use of the forester title, CFE requirements, and Board (BORF) responsibilities; and other items identified in the proposal utilizing the strike through/underline method with red print. One area that the committee has deferred to BORF is a determination as to what fees and renewal costs would be appropriate to support the revised law.

Much discussion occurred within the committee on the definitions; on whether to change “registration” to “licensing”; on whether to have separate requirements for Urban Forestry; on the exemptions; and, really, on all aspects of the law. We now feel, having considered many perspectives, this proposal, if enacted into law, will be a very fair and appropriate law, much superior to what now exists. Issues of importance to the Committee which didn’t lend themselves to being included in the law are added at the end of the draft as recommendations to BORF.

As approved by the NC Executive Committee in September 2004, the L&R Committee recommends that this proposal now be placed on the NC Division of APSAF website to ensure all SAF members have the opportunity to review it and that efforts to discuss the proposal with other interested parties begin. All SAF members, as well as other interested parties, are encouraged to participate in the process as this proposal moves toward legislative action.

OVERVIEW AND TALKING POINTS ON SAF REGISTRATION LAW PROPOSAL

Feb 04 BORF put together a paper to make RF’s aware of issues including weaknesses in the registration law. Other weaknesses and unclear points not in the paper have also been identified.

Weaknesses include-

Forester title restriction –very easily manipulated by non- RF’s
law basically limits and controls only those who are registered with very little impact on those who are not
no control at all on those non-RF’s practicing bad or dishonest forestry
criminal act- cant be realistically enforced & is much more tightly interpreted
limits on Board to do the job; i.e. no authority to give warnings, no hardship exemptions on CFE’s, & state attorney questioned authority of rules that aren’t specifically in law like code of ethics, right to reject inappropriate CF affidavits, etc

SAF- discussed at Asheville 04 summer mtg– set committee: Walden, Hamilton, Hicks, Franklin

We attended all chapter meetings held in fall &early winter to discuss and also sent mailing to every member seeking input.

Met in Columbia at APSAF w/ all NC members to discuss inputs and get more

A large majority of all inputs wanted a stronger law that included an authority to practice forestry provision

Executive Comm directed that the committee be expanded and a proposed draft be developed to improve the law

They added to the committee Jim Sitts(Columbia Forest Products). Tony Doster (IPCO), John Monroe (Consultant), Barry New (DFR),Melissa Begley(UF-Greensboro),Danny Isom (Squires Timber)

Very diverse group in terms of employment and experience (& 2 former Chairs of the BORF)

Group spent 5 months looking at inputs received from Chapters and members; at other laws; and just evaluating pro’s &con’s of current law vs possible improvements

Key Points and changes in proposal:

Retain registration instead of licensing
No longer just title act, also limits practice of professional forestry to RF’s
Allows exemptions to others working in forestry, but not as professional foresters
Eliminates loopholes allowing misuse of forester title
Changes from a criminal law to a civil law- much easier to enforce
Allows Board to exempt hardship cases from CFE’s on an annual basis
Improves definitions, using SAF definitions where possible
Calls for representation of all major areas of forestry on Board
Clarifies Boards role and authority
Clarifies other areas not specific in current law, like reciprocity, renewal of registration after dropping out, etc
Establishes penalties for non-RF’s who violate the law
Provides for all RF’s to be identified by job areas, not just CF’s
Issue of having separate standards and conditions for Urban Foresters was discussed and explored extensively, but ultimately committee agreed that all foresters should have same requirements and standards for registration ( see recommendations attached to draft law)
Exemptions were developed to be broad enough not to prevent non- RF’s from doing their jobs as long as they are not independently practicing professional forestry. Also real emphasis included to not prevent land owners from having authority over their own land.

The committee tried to establish parameters and standards in the law while leaving as much of the detail as possible for the Board to develop through the rule making process. This way, as future changes are needed, these could be handled through rule changes rather than having to change the law. The committee has included several suggestions to the Board to consider in this process.

Walden

11-14-2005