P.O. Box 254 | Bristol, VT 05443 | tel. (802) 453-7728 fax. (802) 453-7729
visit us: http://www.familyforests.org
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Neighborwood™
In our test run in the fall of 2010, Bill Torrey of West Bolton harvested 50 cords of log length (10-12 foot) firewood for sale from the VFF-vertified lands of Jim Dumont and Karen Leuders of Lincoln. Vermont Family Forests supervised forest management, which followed the VFF Forest Health Conservation Checklist of practices that conserve water quality, site productivity, native biological diversity, carbon storage capacity, and forest vitality. To remove the firewood from the forest, Bill Torrey used a forwarder (pictured below), which carries the logs on a wheeled flatbed, rather than dragging them with a log skidder. This minimizes negative impacts to the forest, keeps the firewood exceptionally clean, and reduces energy consumption.
Our goal was to pay landowners and loggers fairly. In this case, the logger was paid $80 per cord to properly fell, limb, buck, forward, and pile the firewood on the landing. The landowner was paid $30 per cord in stumpage (the value of the tree standing in the forest). The trucking was conducted by Jerry Currier of New Haven. Those 50 cords of firewood from our test run sold out quickly. Family forest stewards interested in procuring and marketing firewood via the Neighborwood™ process should contact us at VFF. Photo, below right: Bill Torrey's "light-on-the-land" forwarder.
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Vermont Family Forests has developed and tested a process for procuring and distributing VFF-vertified firewood, which we call NeighborWood™. Our goal was to produce firewood and other forms of forest biomass in ways that are restorative, sustainable, energy-efficient, local, and fair (R-SELF). 
The delivered price of the log-length, green firewood was $150 per cord (for a six-cord minimum), and the firewood included red and sugar maple, American beech, yellow birch, and black cherry. We estimate that each cord delivered 18,600,000 BTUs when burned at 20% moisture content in an efficient wood burning stove. This is roughly equivalent to the energy in 190 gallons of Number 2 fuel oil.