TREE OWNERS NEWS
Fall 2002
Sherry and I want to begin by thanking each of you who responded so
kindly to our earlier letter about the neighboring farm that became
available next to our Sierpe farm. Your response was very heartwarming.
This new addition to our Sierpe farm will provide space to plant an
additional 120,000 wonderful tropical hardwood trees, and just as
important, it will allow us to protect an additional 800 acres of rich and
threatened habitats. Thank you again very much.
We haven't had the time to explore all of the wonderful protection
areas of this new farm, but when we do, we will write more and include
some photos.
For those of you who are new to Tree Owners News, Sherry and I decided
in the days after the tragedy of last September 11 that we would plant in
memorial gardens on our farms one flowering or fruiting tree in memory of
each innocent life lost.
We are now nearly ready to plant the gardens. A few weeks after we
talked with Beto of our plan, he reported back that a local rural women's
association would like the opportunity to produce and sell us the
flowering and fruiting trees that we would be planting. He added that they
were sincere and that they very much needed the work.
Sherry and I responded that we'd be happy to work with them. They set
about gathering the seeds and seedlings, groomed them in their nursery,
and expect to have more than 3,000 little flowering and fruiting trees
ready for us to plant yet this month or early in October.
The gardens will be more than twenty acres of permanent, living tribute
to the innocent men, women and children who perished.
This year's thinnings are proceeding very well, with seven sawmills and
teams now hard at work at Rio Blanco. The quality and quantity of tropical
hardwood lumber from this year's thinnings are again just wonderful. The
last group of 2002 pre-thinning reports will be in the mail shortly.
Everything is moving strongly forward at Raleo™. Our first collection
of Raleo™ furniture is complete, all crafted from young tropical hardwoods
from our farms.
An exquisite
Raleo™ console table, crafted
from 8 year old teak grown on our farms
Jorge and our production team have made many prototypes, worked out the
production details, and mastered an exquisite finish. Every piece of the
collection is just beautiful. We have included photos of two of the
wonderful Raleo™ tables in our new collection.
Side perspective of the new Raleo™
console table
Our marketing team is nearing completion of our Raleo™ marketing
materials and an update of our Raleo™ website at
www.raleo.com.
The Raleo™
finish highlights the beauty of
our young cultured tropical hardwoods
We have also developed more than 100 beautiful designs for our Raleo™
surfaces. In June and July we debuted our Raleo™ surfaces at two upscale
building/design trade shows in the U.S. - PCBC, the Pacific Coast Builders
Conference in San Francisco, and SEBC, South East Builders Conference in
Orlando. The response from the builders, designers, and architects was
incredibly positive.
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Five
new Raleo™ surfaces designs, made
from young tropical hardwoods grown on our farms |
After visiting our Raleo™ surfaces display in Orlando, the Homes Editor
of the Tallahassee Democrat began her article about our Raleo™ surfaces by
writing, "I wish I had the words to describe the sensual pleasure to be
found at the Raleo™ Surfaces booth." The article featured five photos of
our Raleo surfaces.
And after the PCBC, the owner of a California design studio wrote,
"WOW! Quite possibly the coolest stuff ever in wood."
We are also very proud of our Raleo™ art. Ranging from accent to
wall-sized, each one-of-a-kind work is lovingly hand created by our Raleo™
craftsmen from thousands, and in some designs, tens of thousands, of
beautiful hand-shaped nuggets of tropical hardwoods from our trees, each
piece carefully selected, shaped and set, and then beautifully finished.
They are wonderful to both see and to touch. Our Raleo™ art can be
integrated directly into a wall or other surface, made into decorative
screens, mounted for framing, or created exclusively of flat pieces for
very unique floor art.
A selection from the Raleo™ art collection,
designed
from more than 6,000 nuggets of beautiful cultured
tropical hardwoods grown on our tree farms
The main product areas of our Raleo™ website are password protected and
open only to the design trade. But for a short while, we invite you to
preview our Raleo™ surfaces and art, and very soon furniture as well, by
going to www.raleo.com, scrolling a few
paragraphs down, clicking on the Preview link, and, when prompted, typing
in "Tropical
American Tree Farms" (all caps, but without the quotation marks) for your User Name,
and "trees" (lower case, and again, without the quotation marks) as your
Password. We think you will be amazed at the beautiful designs created out
of our young tropical hardwoods.
We are obviously excited about Raleo™ because it is an excellent use
for our young hardwoods, and because it will let the world know how very
beautiful our young hardwoods are.
But just as important, we are excited about the employment
opportunities that Raleo™ will be creating, both in San José, and
especially now out in rural Costa Rica.
Our new Raleo™ surfaces facility here on Campo Real is ideal - clean,
neat, bright, and open air.
Beto, Adrian and Steve
discussing a new surfaces design
in the new Raleo™ facility here on Campo Real.
As we continue to grow, we can foresee the possibility that Raleo™ may
some day employ as many workers as our farms, and that many of the new
openings will be attractive to women, who have little or no employment
opportunities in the rural areas of Costa Rica.
It is difficult to put into words how wonderful it is to be working
with our talented and dedicated Tropical American Tree Farms and Raleo™ teams and to see all of
this coming together. We thank every one of you for helping make this all
possible.
We are still on target for distributions from the first early thinnings
of the 1992 teak during the balance of this year and the first early
thinning of the 1993 teak beginning early next year.
We are excited to be offering a new, beautiful, fast-growing species
of tropical hardwood tree..
As we have worked with the tropical hardwoods from more and more of the
species of trees we are growing, a beautiful young wood has continued to
win warm praise every time we have displayed anything made of it. That
wood is suradan.
We had planted a thousand suradan trees as a trial back in 1992 because
we knew that adult suradan hardwood is a beautiful rich dark reddish brown
and that suradan grows tall and straight, in the forest sometimes reaching
a height of 130 feet and a diameter of 2 to 3 feet or more with clear
straight boles of 70 feet.
Years ago suradan used to be used for railroad ties and marine work
because of its weather resistance and durability in contact with the soil.
Now that it is much more scarce, and because of its warm beauty, suradan
is used for fine cabinetry, furniture, and decorative veneers.
We have learned from our own trees that suradan's vigorous growth is
nearly as fast as teak, and its thinning and harvest schedules will likely
be very similar to teak.
We have also continued to be impressed with the beauty and quality of
its young hardwood. Young suradan lumber is a beautiful dusty rose to rose
brown. Even better, the young suradan logs are nearly uniform in color,
almost from edge to edge, making much more of each log useable.
7˝ year old suradan
As we watched our suradan trees grow and saw from our test cuttings how
quickly they developed beautiful lumber, we began planting additional
suradan trees in 1999 for our own account, and additional suradan trees
thinking that we might later make them available to you, our tree owners,
after we had more time to further test the wood.
Now that we know how quickly and vigorously the suradan trees grow, how
consistently beautiful the young suradan hardwood is, how much heartwood
each log has, and how wonderful the wood is to work with, we are making
suradan trees available. We very much recommend them to you.
A beautiful cabinet
door made
of 7˝ year old suradan
We have a few thousand suradan trees available that we planted in each
of our 1999, 2000, 2001, and 2002 plantings.
Because of suradan's rapid growth and excellent lumber, and because
their seedlings can be difficult to obtain, our suradan trees will be
priced the same as our Premium Mixture.
To introduce suradan to you, we will make them available for a
short time in a very special introductory offer. Until October 21, for
each 100 trees of any species that you buy at our regular tree prices, you
may add 50 suradan trees at one half their normal price.
That means that for each 100 trees of any species that you buy at our
regular prices from now until October 21, you may add 50 beautiful suradan
trees for an additional $835 - even less if you qualify for the lower
quantity pricing.
We will make the suradan available starting with our 1999 planting
first, and continuing in the order that orders are received, until each
successive planting is spoken for. We think you will love suradan as much
as we do.
Quite a few of you have called or e-mailed to thank us for writing in
our last newsletter about the two articles published on the wisdom of
investing in growing timber, and for our making it possible for average
people to join us. Several of you have said that it feels great to invest
in something that you can come and see. Others have added that it's
wonderful to know that your trees are growing and not worry daily about
the stock market's gyrations.
We are happy to provide the service and believe that everyone benefits.
For those of you who have IRA's, or are considering an IRA, new rules
that President Bush signed into law last year now allow significantly
greater annual contributions for 2002 and beyond.
Allowable annual contributions to both Traditional and Roth IRA's are
now $3,000 per year for 2002 and 2003, up from $2,000. If you are 50 or
over, the allowable annual contribution is now $3,500 for each 2002 and
2003.
The allowable contributions for SIMPLE, or Savings Incentive Match Plan
For Employees, IRA's are $7,000 for 2002 and $8,000 for 2003. If you are
50 or over, the allowable contributions are $7,500 and $9,000 respectively
for 2002 and 2003.
For SEP IRA's, the contribution limit has been raised from $35,000 to
$40,000 annually.
The limits for 401K or 403H contributions were raised from $10,500
annually to $11,000 for 2002 and $12,000 for 2003. If you are 50 or over,
the limits are $12,000 and $14,000 for 2002 and 2003.
Educational IRA's can now be used for elementary and secondary school
expenses, and not just higher education. Children are also now allowed to
contribute to their education IRA, even if they have no earned income.
These changes may be very helpful in allowing you to delay or avoid
more income taxes and invest more for your retirement, your children's
education, or leave more for family members.
This information is provided by Mid Ohio Securities, who specialize in
self-directed IRA's and are custodians for more than 300 IRA's for whom we
are growing trees. For more complete information on these new rules and
any limitations, you may go to their website,
www.midoh.com/education/irsnews.htm, or consult with a trusted tax
advisor.
We have held our prices steady for a bit more than a year and now need
to increase them. Our new tree prices will go into effect on October 21.
Sherry and I cannot thank you enough for all you are doing for the
people of Costa Rica, for the environment, indeed for the whole world.
Thank you sincerely.
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