California Tree Farmers of the Year 2005
Members of the Phillips family have lived on their land in Shasta County, California, since the first of them homesteaded there nearly 150 years ago.  The rich forests of pine, cedar and Douglas fir that grace the property have always been an important part of the Phillipses’ livelihood, and the family has operated its own sawmill for more than a century.

Today’s generation of family members use the fine-grained wood grown on their land to make specialty products including wooden boxes for the packaging of compact disks.  By controlling the chain of value from seedling to final production they earn more revenue from fewer trees than when the family sold only traditional products like limber, logs and pulp.  A relatively low rate of harvest has allowed stocking in the Phillips’ forests to rise to impressive levels and it continue to rise.  Average tree sized also have increased and stands are healthy. 

For its present-day success, the family owes considerable thanks to an earlier generation of Phillipses, four brothers who managed the forests and sawmill from World War II through the 1990’s.  These four added manufacturing to the family’s milling operation and created a diverse forest with an abundance of large old trees.

The 984-acre Phillips forest property lies near the hamlet of Oak Run, northeast of Redding, California, where the Sierra Nevada meet the Cascades.  Elevations range from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and some parts of the property receive a remarkable 100 inches of precipitation per year, supporting lush stands of mixed conifers and hardwoods.

Today’s family members also are starting to thin the forest in order to create a healthier landscape and one less vulnerable to fire.  Since trees in a thinned forest grow more vigorously, these harvests are a continuation of the uncles’ efforts to increase stocking by growing bigger trees.  They have protected the property from future fragmentation, development or overharvest by granting a conservation easement to the Pacific Forest Trust.  The easement also reduced inheritance taxes that would have led to the destruction of the integrity of the Phillips forestland.