Good Morning!

My name is Bob LaBar. I am a Consulting forester based in the Poconos. I am currently Chairman of the Pennsylvania Division Allegheny Society of American Foresters (SAF) and President of the Pennsylvania Council of Professional Foresters (PCPF). Approximately 1/4 of my career has been spent with the state and federal government (mostly on the Allegheny National Forest), another 50% with forest industry (Hammermill Paper Company) and the last 1/4 as a consultant.

At three different times in my career I have been involved with the subject of Registration and Licensing of Foresters. Most recently when I chaired a forestry task force for the 9 county Pocono Resource and Development Council. As this group struggled to develop a model municipal timber harvesting ordinance that later was further perfected and distributed by Penn State, we were struck by the closeness of this issue and the need to provide some type of credentialling for foresters.

We discovered that, time after time, engineers were automatically being consulted by municipalities on a regular basis on land management issues for which the had little training and experience. Further, engineers and surveyors are insisting on taking over routine responsibilities of foresters for preparing Soil erosion and Sedimentation Plans (E&S Plans) for logging operations, simple mapping and timber typing of forested properties when preparing management plans and the rough locating of property lines associated with timber sales. As a DEP certified Sewage Enforcement Officer, I know that your are already familiar with the ongoing battle with engineers over a similar encroachment on decades of Municipal SEO’s design responsibilities.

Foresters also face increasing competition from individuals who call themselves foresters but have had little or no training in this area. My region of the state has long been targeted by such individuals and many hunting and fishing clubs, Scout reservations, and community watersheds have fallen victim. The best example is a high school graduate who got ahold of his brother’s forestry textbooks and set up a consulting practice for several decades. Another is a college student with no background in natural resources who worked for years on municipal watersheds. So that you don’t feel I am picking on just non-foresters, I would like to point out a retired state forester who concentrated on Scout reservations where he ignored most of the federal and state regulations, Best Management Practices (BMPS) and good sound forestry principals. Unfortunately, I have had to follow in the footsteps of these individuals and try to undo the past wrongs. If only there were some way, other than legal action, whereby an aggrieved landowner could hold such individuals accountable. This applies to myself as well as my peers. It is in this context that the proposed Forester Accountability legislation, that you will hear more about later, was born.

Getting back to my Pocono R. C. & D. Forestry Committee and how we got to where we are today. It soon became apparent that the idea of forester accountability was a serious problem that went beyond our region and was best left to the forestry profession to address. You will hear shortly of how they drafted a proposal that was eventually put to a vote of the membership.

Once a position was taken, it became obvious that the SAF was not in the best position to work or lobby for the proposal and hence PCPF was formed. However, I wish to emphasize that this organization was formed for the long term to be a spokesman for Pennsylvania forestry issues in general. We are not a single issue group as the position statements you will be provided shortly indicate.

Gentlemen, I thank you for taking time to hear our side of this important issue. I and my fellow professional foresters look forward to working with you and hope you will feel free to call on us to help answer any questions and concerns.