Excellent article. I would add that if you buy into a REIT, you are also buying into commercial logging practices - clearcuts, monoculture replanting with genetically-identical trees, herbicide use to control non-desired species after replanting - the basic extractive model that does not respect the natural environment. If you own your own woodlot, you can manage it with respect for the natural environment - with selective logging, leaving of superior trees for reseeding, and management for the benefit of wildlife also. And selective logging employs more people, local farmers and woodsmen. Finally, as the article notes, a woodlot makes a fine family working vacation spot. Nothing like planting trees to get the family thinking about the future and our role as stewards of the natural environment.