There’s this recurring debate every election cycle about whether we need more or less government in our lives. And it’s never going to end because most of us are conflicted on the matter. We’re a nation imbued with the anti-government ethos of our founders and the libertarian spirit of the frontier; at the same time we’ve come to really like the fact that there’s a regulatory framework designed to keep toxic sludge out of our rivers and rat meat out of our sausage. All of this is to say that we’re capable of seeing government regulation as both a bane and a balm, sometimes simultaneously.
I’m no better than anyone else in this regard, so when it comes to issues concerning government regulation I don’t trust my knee-jerk response. In Vermont, for instance, the powers that be are debating whether or not foresters should be required to become licensed by the state. And it’s pretty easy for me to construct a scenario in my mind where licensing would be a good thing. Would you feel better having your interests represented by a lawyer who had taken and passed the bar exam, or someone who watched Law & Order and just decided he liked the legal profession?
But I’m equally capable of seeing the whole thing as a needless bureaucratic exercise. As a sugarmaker, I can tell you that the only difference between my maple syrup and the certified organic stuff being made up the road is that I don’t have to pay the certifying body a join-our-club fee and you don’t have to pay a premium for a little sticker on the jug telling you that an inherently organic product is organic. This isn’t quite the same thing, but it’s the same spirit and the same point that a little piece of paper (and a fistful of dollars changing hands) doesn’t necessarily mean a better job or product, but will almost always mean a more expensive one for the consumer.
So I put knee braces on both my left and my right knee (to keep them from jerking) and waded, stiff legged, into the forester certification issue in an attempt to triangulate truth. My first step was to ask some Vermont foresters what they thought, and I kept things off the record to ensure candor. One retired forester told me that in his experience (and at 88 years old his experience is quite extensive) it’s the person, not the license, who determines if the work will be good or bad in most any trade. A young forester right out of forestry school told me that since the majority of the state’s woodland is in Current Use, and county foresters have to check off on Current Use plans, the county foresters are already a means of ensuring good work. She also wondered about the educational requirements, having recently gone through a pesticide licensing process where she learned “NOTHING.” [The caps were her emphasis.] A third forester was similarly skeptical, referring to some of his continuing ed as “a joke.” Having previously practiced in a state where forester licensing was mandatory, he said the Achilles’ heel was enforcement, which was either non-existent or easy to circumvent. An additional problem forestry has is that results can be subjective, he said. If a licensed surveyor is doing bad work, it’s pretty easy to check the math, and if the loop doesn’t close, lay down the law. Forestry is not so tidy, though. One man’s early successional cut is another’s ecological disaster. This thought was echoed by a fourth Vermont forester I spoke to, who said: “In my experience, foresters are asked to provide a range of services and in some cases three foresters would develop three different recommendations for the same service – and all would be right! If the concern is poorly run timber harvests, the blame rests as much with landowner greed as with unprofessional forester conduct.”
I talked to a forester in New Hampshire and one in Massachusetts – states that require licenses – and both told me that while they agreed with the idea of standards, they couldn’t really say whether licensing has had much of an effect on the quality of forestry being practiced. Both expressed concern about enforcement: “The existence of forester licensing is worthwhile, but realistically, enforcement must be meaningful, or it’s just another form of advertising,” one replied.
I tried to get some numbers from the state department of licensure in New Hampshire that would speak to the enforcement issue there, and was told that the board has had 22 complaints since 2001. Five of them were not within the jurisdiction of the board, two signed settlement agreements (one of those resulted in voluntary surrender of license), five were dismissed, four were directed to other agencies/organizations, four were confidential letters of concern.
So, one revoked license out of 22 complaints in 13 years. The numbers seem kind of underwhelming, but it’s hard to argue that getting rid of a bad apple is anything but good. And it’s clear that in this case the licensing system gave the landowner an outlet for her grievance and the state a means of policing the profession.
Until now we’ve been looking at the question of whether licensing is necessary, but the next logical question is: what will it cost? I’m not sure anyone can tell us what the administrative costs would be – other than the fact that they’d exist and that they’d better include not just a bureaucracy involved with registration, testing, licensing, but a separate wing involved with enforcement. (If enforcement is even possible.)
But by looking at other states, we can estimate the cost burden on foresters, which will run from hundreds of dollars in annual or biannual registration fees to conceivably tens of thousands of dollars in education costs if college degrees are deemed necessary. And we know that some of this is going to get passed on to the forestland owners who pay for these services; according to this study, prices go up about 15 percent when a trade becomes licensed. Proponents will argue that cleaning up the product will make landowners more inclined to hire a forester, which is in the foresters and the state’s best interest. This may be true, but I wouldn’t ignore the rise in the cost of service completely. One of the big complaints I hear from foresters is that many landowners are already loath to pay for the non-income-generating parts of good forestry. If the state wants to encourage people to use foresters – an unnecessary profession in the sense that you don’t need a forester to mark a timber sale any more than you need an architect to build a house – it needs to wonder what the consumer is willing to pay. We’re very good at wanting things in the abstract, but when push comes to shove, not wanting to pay for them.
We hear about gentrification of rural towns in the Northeast a lot – where an influx of out-of-state money leads to rising property values and higher taxes that squeeze out the locals. If not executed properly, I worry that licensure could become a form of intellectual gentrification. I hope the state sees that an exam-based system that allows for independent study and a robust apprenticeship program would keep the doors to the profession open to rural people with limited means who can’t go to college or don’t want to go to college. This would be a good thing. In a country where student loan debt has topped a trillion dollars, and according to one recent survey 83 percent of college seniors graduated without a job last spring, I hope the powers that be think twice before forcing aspiring foresters into oodles of debt.
The final nugget I’ll leave you with is that I couldn’t find any study anywhere that showed that licensing resulted in better quality work. I did find some that suggested there was no effect.
So that’s what I’ve been able to learn in a short amount of time. And it’s important to note that the people in my Rolodex and an hour spent on the internet shouldn’t be considered an unbiased sample. I wish I had a ringing endorsement to report in the interest of balance; if you think licensing is a great idea, please share with the group and tell us why. And let the state know your thoughts, pro or con, by clicking here.
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