Hello, I have had 25 trees cut on my property , I have contacted IDNR law enfocement , they have helped me find the landowner and logger. the logger says he will do everything he can to make this right. The trees are mostly , hackberry, soft maple, 1 ash and two oak. My questions are these. Am I owed 3 times what the logger was payed for the trees? What is treble stumpage? He also left about 6-8 tops of trees cut on neighboring land owner on my property , along with my 25 tops and other damaged trees, is he responsable for cleanup? Is the logger responsable for replacing small trees that were killed? Should I hire a forrestry consultant? Any other information on this would help a great deal. Thank you Gary Gabriel

Greetings Gary:

Professional foresters are frequently consulted to assist private and public forest landowners with timber theft and timber trespass issues.

Therefore, I strongly encourage you to hire a professional consulting forester to assist you in determining the value of the illegally harvested timber and to help you with other mitigating factors (property damage, tops/logging slash, damage to pre-merchantable stems, etc.).

Directory of Professional Consulting Foresters:

http://web.extension.illinois.edu/forestry/pdf/tfb-nres-202.pdf

Treble Stumpage = three times the stumpage value (i.e., three times the value of a standing tree).