Foresters, industry urge clearer timber-theft registry and stronger enforcement

Ed Larson, a consulting forester and longtime representative of the Vermont Forest Products Association, and Gwen Zakoff, the association’s lobbyist, told the House Committee on Agriculture, Food Resiliency & Forestry that the attorney general’s report on timber trespass clarified the problem but offered few concrete next steps.

"The landowner deserves to be made whole. The law is there," Larson said, describing situations where landowners win civil judgments but struggle to recover money or get cleanups done. Zakoff said the report contains "breadcrumbs" but lacks actionable recommendations and highlighted the newly created registry as useful but not user-friendly.

The witnesses urged three near-term fixes: make the attorney general’s land‑improvement/timber‑theft registry easier for landowners to read (add plain‑language column headings and a dedicated timber‑theft column), create limited enforcement capacity with a designated specialist inside a state agency or a defined law‑enforcement partner, and expand outreach so small or absentee landowners know where to go for help.

Zakoff called the registry "one of the biggest nuggets, I think the golden nugget of last year's legislation was the creation of the land improvement timber theft registry," and said the current layout — two terse columns tied to statutory citations — makes it hard for a layperson to tell whether a listed name is tied to timber trespass, home‑improvement fraud or another offense.

Committee members and witnesses described enforcement gaps. Witnesses said Vermont lacks a forestry enforcement arm comparable to other states' forestry divisions and forest wardens; existing authorities — Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation (FPR), Department of Taxes, state police, game wardens and environmental enforcement — each handle particular, limited circumstances (for example FPR oversight of large cuts, Act 250 thresholds and water‑quality authorities), leaving many private‑land incidents with no clear, resourced investigator.

Witnesses and legislators noted that the roster of reported incidents is small — testimony referenced roughly "between 6 and 10 a year" in the report — but they argued that small numbers do not remove the urgency because harmed landowners face legal costs, delayed restoration and, in some cases, loss of eligibility for conservation or current‑use programs. They debated seizure and forfeiture as a deterrent: industry speakers said seizing major equipment could put bad actors out of business and send a strong message; the legislature trimmed seizure provisions during bill negotiations and testimony described ongoing disagreement about use of that authority.

Speakers also described cases that blur civil and environmental enforcement, such as contract breaches that lead to water‑quality violations when inadequate closeout and erosion controls cause runoff. Committee members asked whether responsibility should be clarified so that a logging contractor who breached closeout obligations might be held to fund remediation rather than leaving costs to the landowner.

Witnesses suggested modest, practical outreach steps: add timber‑protection information to property tax mailings and town reports, promote sample contracts and checklists on the Department of Forests and Parks web pages, and have associations point prospective buyers and sellers to a readable registry once the registry is improved.

The committee did not vote on new measures at this session. Members signaled interest in follow‑up: inviting attorney general or department staff to demonstrate the registry, exploring a targeted enforcement position or specialist within a state agency, and preserving the conversation about seizure and forfeiture as a possible enforcement tool.

Ending: Committee members said they do not want momentum around enforcement to stall. Several requested return appearances by industry witnesses and follow‑up briefings from the attorney general and relevant state agencies to clarify registry changes, enforcement roles and possible incremental policy steps.