Kentucky’s forestry industries want better education and, ultimately, better enforcement of state timber laws and regulations to cut down timber theft.
That was the word today before a meeting of the Interim Joint Committee on Natural Resources and Environment where Kentucky Forest Industries Association Executive Director Bob Bauer said more cooperation, not more laws, may be the answer to costly theft of timber on Kentucky’s mostly private forest lands.
Bauer said a recent informal meeting of stakeholders, including timber theft victims, showed a desire for a task force or workgroup to push for better enforcement. Most logging cases currently end up in civil court, lawmakers were told at the meeting. “We have excellent laws, but if we can’t get them enforced, it doesn’t do us a lot of good,” said Bauer.
Lawmakers took action most recently to curb “bad actors”—those who violate the state’s forestry regulations, focused mainly on water quality—by passing Senate Bill 92 this spring. That bill, sponsored by Sen. Joe Bowen, R-Owensboro, requires loggers or logging operators with bad actor designations to notify the Division of Forestry before harvesting any timber until all civil penalties are paid and reclamation work complete.
Those with multiple bad actor designations can be forced by the state to cease logging until they pay fines and fix poorly logged sites, explained Bauer. “There’s a very small number of those repeat bad actors, but I can tell you just by talking to those in the forestry world that I know a number of these people are also involved in timber theft cases,” he said.
From KyForward: https://www.kyforward.com/our-government/2015/10/02/kentucky-lawmakers-cut-into-timber-theft-enforcement-of-existing-laws-seen-as-key/