HELP -what do these forestry terms really mean?

Implications: Forestry like many other operations has its own vocabulary which it can be confusing to other professions.  Here's a partial list of terms and acronyms which made find helpful   Ownership Structures and related terms   REIT - this refers to a Real Estate Investment Trust that among other things owns and manages timberlands as an investment and is normally a publicly traded company.  The enabling legislation dates back to the 1997 Real Estate Investment Trust Simplification Act Which allowed investment in forest operations  Examples of REITs include Plum Creek and Rayonier.   TIMO refers to a Timber Management Organization.  This is a forestry firm who manages timberlands for other groups of investors such as retirement funds.  TIMOs are not publicly traded.  Examples include the Hancock Forest Resource Group, and the Forest Land Group (FLG).  Enabled by the 1974 ERISA – Employee Retirement Act – allows diversification in pension investments.  

Analysis:  Fee simple is an estate of land in common law (many times referred to as -Corp lands. It is the most common way real estate is owned in common law countries, and Fee simple ownership has been the standard for industrial ownership in the United States for the last 50 years.  Over the last 10 years, over 30 million acres of  C-Corp timberlands have been sold to mainly the TIMO and REITs.  The terms Fee and C-Corp. are used interchangeably.  Examples of see this timberlands are basically Weyerhaeuser and MeadWestvaco - who is clearly on exit strategy from timberlands.   Timber supply agreement (TSA) this is the agreement is worked out between the selling and buying firms and large Timberland play.  The seller of the timberlands would like to maintain a certain minimum amount of fiber from the lands it formally owned so they enter into a TSA with the owner of the timberlands to supply a certain percentage of fiber for a certain period of time, normally 10 to 15 years.   Reverse Morris trust (RMT) is the name of a seldom used financial tool that was established in 1966 which allows timberlands to be exchanged in a tax-free fashion.  The RMT was among the tools used by Plum Creek and Georgia-Pacific when they merged the former Georgia-Pacific’s Timber Company with Plum Creek.  One stipulation is that the acquiring firm be smaller in both dollars and acres than the selling firm   Double taxation of timberlands this refers to the fact that Fee timberlands are basically doubles taxed, once at the corporate level and then again by the shareholder as part of the normal dividend process.  This is one argument that is been used by Weyerhaeuser and others as an alternative to formation of a REIT.   Carbon credit - Unit of carbon that is traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) including sequestration of carbon by forestry activities.  

Forestry Terms 
  Acre - the basic unit of land measurement in the United States.  One acre contains 43,560 Square Feet  The metric equivalent of the acre is the hectare, which equals 2.54 acres.   Timber Inventory – The process of sampling trees to derive the volume of timber.  Based on a timber cruise (actual statistical tree measurement), The Forester develops tree volume per acre then multiplies these volumes by the acres (above) = Total Volume of merchantable trees.  These values are then multiplied by selling price by ton.  You then have a Forest Valuation, used for purchase and divestiture of timberlands.    Higher and Better Use (HBU) refers to timberlands which have other values that have grown beyond normal forest land.  Examples would be timberlands located close to cities, frontage on rivers and lakes, or environmental and industrial uses beyond the normal value of the land.   Tons of wood - normally in this country refers to 2000 pounds of green timber, which is commonly referred to a short ton.  The metric ton is normally 2200 pounds of green timber.  Most timber is bought and sold by weight basis.  In the past timber was valued by the cord which is the measurement of volume, and not weight.   Board foot - this is the unit of measurement for saw timber trees.  There are many different timber scales implemented for measuring volume of board foot in a tree.  In its simplest form it can be expressed as the number of cubic feet required to produce a board foot of lumber.  This is also known as recovery of lumber.   OSB - oriented strand board is a panel of wood with similar properties as plywood, that is made of reconstituted wood and Glue.  OSB used to be a small percentage of the total panel market but in the last two years has surpassed plywood, mainly due to the fact that OSB is much cheaper to produce than plywood.   Plantation - a number of acres of planted forest.  There are native plantations which grow species of trees that are normal to that area.  There are also exotic plantations that support trees that normally from in a different climate or area.  Plantations receive advanced forestry such as fertilization, cleaning, and partial cuts.  Over the last few years there has been some planting of what's called genetically modified material, which an example would be a gene inserted into pine tree to make it resistant to disease.  Plantations normally throw grow two to five times faster than endemic forests.   GIS - refers to a geographic information system and use the basic computer measurement system for forest activities.  The system is how acres are calculated as referred to above.  A relatively recent data collection device is the GPS receiver, which collects location information into a format that is readable into a GIS. From a satellite.  Saw mill chips - refers to the 30 to 40% of the saw timber size tree and ends up in chips which are then sold to paper mills to make Pulp.  These chips are normally sought after by paper mills due to the consistent properties.  Other products include bark, which is used in power cogeneration.

Please see my other posts for more details

The rise and fall (and rise again?) of the Reverse Morris Trust (RMT)
 
  If becoming a REIT is such an attractive alternative for integrated forest products companies, why not implement immediately?  

What is the predominant software used for mapping gas, oil, mining, and forestry operations?