Expertise in Resource Evaluation

Forestry and Natural Resource Consulting

The oldest forestry consulting firm in the nation, Sewall offers comprehensive services in forestry inventory design and execution, mapping and data warehousing, timberland appraisal and timber tax consulting, investment analysis and due diligence, and arbitration and expert testimony. An internationally recognized leader in the field, Sewall has consulted on issues that concern millions of acres of forestland in the United States, Canada, and Australia and collaborated on due diligence and resource analysis worldwide.

Since 1978, Sewall has developed GIS mapping and database systems for large landowners, corporate clients, state and federal agencies, and local governments. With ready access to a range of data from land use and covertype to land parcels and infrastructure, Sewall clients are better able to manage their investments, to comply with changing regulations, to track financial information, and to model future activities on their lands.

APPRAISALS
Sewall helps clients find, evaluate, and track investment opportunities. Qualified financial experts assist clients in cost basis allocation, charitable contributions of real property, estate or income tax plan design, tax abatements, real estate partitioning, and conservation easements. Our resource analysts prepare cost studies and analyses on regulatory risk and resource policy and provide support in eminent domain proceedings and expert testimony in litigation. Sewall maintains a time series on critical data elements and circulates The Timberland Report, a periodic timberland newsletter on financial trends. To date, Sewall has appraised millions of acres and several primary wood-processing facilities. For more information on our appraisal services, see Natural Resource Appraisal and Consulting.

FOREST INVENTORY
Increasingly Sewall is consulted to design inventories that satisfy volumetric, valuation, legal, and regulatory objectives. In inventory design, Sewall analysts use GIS map and image data to obtain even plot distribution and unbiased statistics. Integrating accurate inventory data with financial information, Sewall locates and schedules harvests to optimize growth potential. Sewall has conducted very large inventories encompassing thousands of sample points or plots. Using public domain, client, or Sewall proprietary software, Sewall produces inventory estimates supplemented by analysis, growth and yield modeling and financial analysis such as discounted cashflow (DCF).

MAPPING AND IMAGE ANALYSIS
Sewall produces a range of natural resource mapping, including forest covertype, land use/land cover, ownership, primary wood-processing, and orthophotography, in addition to soils, hydrography, and zoning. Sewall analysts have developed robust linkage with inventory functions and created maps that chronicle land sales for appraisal clients. Our skilled photo interpreters use advanced optical equipment to classify forests and other land use/land cover, employing full photogrammetric techniques to integrate these data with orthophotography and satellite images for customized applications.

LAND OWNERSHIP AND MILL LOCATION MAPS
To provide our clients with current information on forestland ownership, Sewall produces digital and hard-copy land ownership maps and digital databases. Color-coded, the maps indicate major landholders in the New England states of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont; northern New York; southern Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. Sewall also produces current mill location maps, a companion mill owner list, and a mill facilities database covering the same areas. The mill location maps identify pulp mills, sawmills, OSB plants, biomass facilities, and other primary processors and concentration yards. For more information, see Land Ownership and Mill Location Maps

LAND MANAGEMENT PLANNING
Sewall provides land managers with comprehensive information management, including inventory, appraisal, and mapping services. Sewall also assists small and medium-sized landowners and managers and primary wood-processing mills in the preparation of business, management, and harvest plans.

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