The Forestland Group, LLC

April 27, 2012

Mike Hincher to Join Virginia Tech Advisory Board

Mike Hincher, Senior Vice President–Forest Operations, has been invited to serve on the Advisory Board of the Department of Forest Resources and Environmental Conservation of the College of Natural Resources and Environment at Virginia Tech. Mr. Hincher will serve a two-year term on the Advisory Board. The mission of the Board is to bring knowledge of trends and issues in the forest-resource-based professions and to provide insight to the Department that will keep forestry and the related curricula current and relevant. Also, Advisory Board members are expected to serve as advocates for the Department to potential students, the College of Natural Resources, the University, the Virginia legislature and the general public. Mr. Hincher looks forward to serving on this Board to help promote the stated mission.

Mr. Hincher is a 1988 graduate of Virginia Tech.

March 30, 2012

DEC MODIFIES FOREST CONSERVATION EASEMENT TO ALLOW LEASING OF 220 CAMPS AND STATE ACQUISITION OF 2,800 ACRES OF FOREST LAND

Leasing of Former Champion Lands in Adirondacks by Heartwood Forestland Fund to Continue.

Deal Adds 2,146 Acres to the State Forest Preserve and Creates 651-Acre State Forest

Leasing of recreational camps on the former Champion lands in Franklin, Herkimer, Lewis and St. Lawrence counties will be allowed under an agreement reached this week with the state and Heartwood Forestland Fund III, LP, the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) Commissioner Joe Martens announced today. As part of the agreement, Heartwood Forestland, the owner of a conservation easement on the former Champion lands, will transfer 2,797 acres of valuable wildlife habitat in the Deer River corridor to the state.. [read more]

March 20, 2012

Blake Stansell Earns Financial Certification

The Forestland Group is pleased to announce that, Blake H. Stansell, CFP®, has been authorized by the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards (CFP Board) to use the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and CFP (with flame design)® in accordance with CFP Board certification and renewal requirements. Mr. Stansell currently serves as the Senior Vice President of Investments and has been employed by The Forestland Group since 2000.

These marks identify those individuals who have met the rigorous experience and ethical requirements of the CFP Board, have successfully completed financial planning coursework and have passed the CFP® Certification Examination covering the following areas: the financial planning process, risk management, investments, tax planning and management, retirement and employee benefits, and estate planning. CFP® certificants also agree to meet ongoing continuing education requirements and to uphold CFP Board’s Code of Ethics and Professional Responsibility, Rules of Conduct and Financial Planning Practice Standards.

CFP Board is a nonprofit certification organization with a mission to benefit the public by granting the CFP® certification and upholding it as the recognized standard of excellence for personal financial planning. CFP Board owns the certification marks CFP®, CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ and federally registered CFP (with flame design) in the U.S., which it awards to individuals who successfully complete initial and ongoing certification requirements. CFP Board currently authorizes more than 61,000 individuals to use these marks in the United States. For more about CFP Board, visit www.CFP.net.

January 19, 2012

Conservation Sale Announced

The Kentucky Division of Forestry and the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources have jointly acquired nearly 2,500 acres in Union County at the confluence of the Ohio and Tradewater rivers. The property will become the state’s newest wildlife management area (WMA) and state forest. [read more]

December 30, 2011

Promotions and a New Hire

The Forestland Group LLC (TFG) announced today the promotion of the following three employees:

Blake Stansell has been promoted to Senior Vice President – Investments.

Kaarsten Turner-Dalby has been promoted to Vice President – Ecological Services.

Linwood Thornton has been promoted to Senior Vice President and CFO.

In his position, Blake will assume increased responsibility for timberland acquisition due-diligence activities, valuation modeling, timber and timberland market analysis, and coordination of third-party appraisals.

Kaarsten will continue oversight of the FSC certification program and TFG’s efforts to generate increased revenues from a diversity of ecological services including sales of carbon credits and working-forest conservation easements, leasing of wind-energy rights, and monetization of non-timber attributes associated with forestland ownership.

Lin will continue leading TFG’s financial and administrative team, which is charged with such functions as reporting, tax, risk management, financing, budgeting, and fund administration.

In addition, TFG welcomes a new forestry professional to the team. Joe Schwartz has been named the Assistant to the Regional Director of Forest Operations – Southern Region. Joe will be assisting Andy Norris in overseeing the management activities for the southern region.

Prior to joining TFG, Mr. Schwartz served as Resource Forester for the Missouri Department of Conservation. Based in Sedalia, his responsibilities included the design and implementation of a statewide CFI project, silvicultural programs, managing wildlife and recreation resources on multiple conservation areas, providing forest-management assistance to private landowners, as well as being a technical resource to field forestry staff for inventory design and analysis, ArcGIS, GPS, and data recorders. Prior to working for the Department of Conservation , Joe worked as a Forester for Clearwater Forest Consultants and as a Forestry Sub-Contractor for Chestnut Ridge Forestry.

Mr. Schwartz holds a Master of Science in Silviculture from Michigan Technological University and a B.S. in Forest Science from the University of Wisconsin. He is a member of the Society of American Foresters.

October 7, 2011

Executive Changes at Anderson-Tully

Anderson-Tully announced today some executive-level changes. Chip Dickinson, President and Chief Executive Officer of Anderson-Tully, will resign as an officer effective late October 2011 in order to join E. Ritter and Company (based in Marked Tree, Arkansas) as President. Mr. Dickinson joined Anderson-Tully in 1995 and was the primary liaison in Anderson-Tully’s 2006 acquisition by an affiliate of The Forestland Group (based in Chapel Hill, North Carolina), and continued to lead the Company following the transaction.

Two long-time executives will be promoted. Richard L. Wilkerson, currently Executive Vice-President of Anderson-Tully Lumber Company, will be promoted to President of Anderson-Tully Lumber Company. W. Norman Davis, currently Executive Vice-President of Anderson-Tully Company, will be promoted to President of Anderson-Tully Company. Chris Zinkhan, based in North Carolina and the Chairman of Anderson-Tully’s Board of Directors, will assume the role of Chief Executive Officer. In his new position, Mr. Wilkerson will oversee lumber manufacturing and sales, human resources, and information technology. Mr. Davis will be responsible for the timberlands, forestry operations, wildlife management, and river transportation.

Wilkerson began his career in 1978 in Vicksburg operations and later spent 10 years as a sales representative with Anderson-Tully in Memphis. Wilkerson returned to Vicksburg in 1996 as Vice-President-Lumber Sales. Wilkerson currently serves on the Executive Committee of the Hardwood Manufacturers Association and is a former board member of the American Hardwood Export Council. Locally, Wilkerson serves on the YMCA Board of Directors and is actively involved with the Salvation Army. He and his wife Ruth are members of Church of the Holy Trinity, Episcopal and have two sons, George and Gordon.

Davis spent from 1978 to 1990 in the Anderson-Tully forestry department managing timberland primarily north of Memphis. He worked for Temple-Inland Forest Products Corporation from 1990 through 1999 where he developed and implemented a hardwood management program for lands in Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Alabama. Davis returned to Anderson-Tully in late 1999 as Lands Manager. He is currently Chairman of the Southern Hardwood Forestry Research Group and Vice-Chairman of the Southern Hardwood Forestry Group. He and his wife Kyran have three children and two grandchildren and live in Clinton, MS.

Mr. Zinkhan made the following statement about the changes and the Company’s future: “We are very appreciative of Chip’s contribution and long service to the Company; Chip, Richard, and Norman have been instrumental in improving the productivity and efficiency of the Company since the merger. With these improvements and our new executive team, we are excited about our niche within the hardwood sector and our ability to compete now and in the future within the global marketplace.”

Anderson-Tully, a Mississippi corporation was founded in 1889 and is one of Vicksburg’s oldest and largest industries.

September 30, 2011

The Forestland Group, LLC participates in international effort to identify global croplands and their water use.

The Forestland Group’s Senior Forester, Alex Finkral, has joined a team of scientists sponsored by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) to create a “knowledge warehouse” for data, products, approaches, methods, algorithms, models, and maps pertaining to global croplands and their water use. The Global Croplands Working Group is supported by the USGS Powell Center in Fort Collins, Colorado (http://powellcenter.usgs.gov/). Created in 2010, the Powell Center serves as a catalyst for innovative thinking in earth system science research, initiated as one means of implementing the USGS Science Strategy, to support scientist-driven interdisciplinary analysis and synthesis of complex natural science problems.

The Global Cropland Working Group, comprised of 13 scientists from China, India, Nepal, Italy, England, Turkey, and the U.S., held their first meeting September 26th-30th, 2011. Climate change is putting unprecedented pressure on global croplands and their water use, vital for ensuring future food security for the world’s rapidly expanding human population. Through fusion of advanced remote sensing (e.g., Landsat, Resourcesat, MODIS) in combination with national statistics, ancillary data (e.g., elevation, precipitation), and field-plot data, the group aims to develop an advanced geospatial information system that will provide information such as: crop types, precise location of crops, cropping intensities (e.g., single crop, double crop), crop health\vigor, watering methods (e.g., irrigated, supplemental irrigated, rainfed), flood and drought information, and yield or productivity (expressed per unit of land and\or unit of water). Dr. Finkral brings a resource management perspective to the group, with a focus on tradeoffs in ecosystem services between crop and non-cropland ecosystems.

September 21, 2011

Kaarsten Turner Dalby was a panelist at the “Who Will Own the Forest?” conference September 19-21 in Portland, Oregon.

“Who Will Own the Forest?” is an annual conference focused on the unique opportunities and challenges in forestland investments . The “Who Will Own the Forest?” conference series has become the largest event of its kind in North America, and is considered by many to be the premier forestland investing event. This 2½ day conference offers ample networking and learning opportunities including continuing education credits for appraisers, attorneys, foresters, and CPAs.

The goal of the panel, Carbon Promises and Reality was to provide a grounded discussion of recent decisions, evaluations, deals, progress and 3-5 year trends in the North American Forest Carbon Market.

Kaarsten joined other panelists:

The Forestland Group announced today the promotion of the following three employees:

In his position, Craig will continue to oversee forest management of the more than 626,000 acres managed by The Forestland Group in the Appalachian Region. Craig joined the firm in 2000 as Director of Forest Operations-Appalachian Region.

Andy will continue to supervise forest management with responsibility for overseeing the on-the-ground management activities for the approximately 801,670 acres owned in the southern region. Mr. Norris started with the firm in 2004 as Director of Forest Operations-Southern Region.

Elizabeth will continue her management responsibility for TFG’s GIS operational plans, IT support, and data integration for research and reporting. Elizabeth joined the firm in 1996 as Administrative Assistant with a concentration in GIS.

ODNR Dedicates New State Forest and Wildlife Area. COLUMBUS, OH – Today, Governor Ted Strickland and Department of Natural Resources (ODNR) Director Sean Logan announced the opening of Ohio’s newest state forest, the 12,089-acre Vinton Furnace State Experimental Forest, as well as the neighboring 3,405-acre Vinton Furnace State Wildlife Area.