The Politics of Timber Theft
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR

Stealing trees is as old as the King's timber reserves. The sanctions for such sylvan thievery have always been harsh. In medieval England, it meant public torture and slow death. In the US, the levy was a kind of financial death penalty --triple damages plus serious jail time.

A couple of years ago, two tree poachers drove a log truck onto a small farm in central Indiana after midnight, cut down two 100-year old black walnut trees in the small woodlot, loaded the pilfered trunks onto their truck and fled across a cornfield. The county sheriff caught them when their truck stalled in the field and sank in the mud. It turns out that the men had been hired by a local sawmill owner, who was set to sell the lumber to a German timber broker. All three men were tried and convicted of tree theft.

The black walnut trees, highly prized by German furniture makers, were valued at $150,000 each. The men were hit with $900,000 in fines and three years of jail time.

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