Community Forestry Bonds

US Forest Capital was founded in 1998 by Joe Euphrat and Tom Tuchmann to allow non-profit organizations to participate in the market for forestland through low yield tax-exempt revenue bonds and thereby make tax exempt sustainable forestry a reality. With access to a well-established financial market, non-profit organizations would be able to raise the considerable sums needed to become active in the market for forestlands. And by using tax-exempt bonds, the non-profits could manage their forestland more sustainably because their obligations to pay back interest would not be as high. US Forest Capital proposed the use of tax-exempt revenue bonds: bonds “secured by revenue from tolls, user charges, or rents derived from the facility financed.” In the case of a forest purchased with revenue bonds, revenue from the operation of the forest, such as timber harvests, would be used to meet the obligation to the bondholders. In order to realize their plan, US Forest Capital and its partners must convince the U.S. Congress to amend the Internal Revenue Code to allow non-profit organizations to issue the bonds for the purpose of forestry purchases.