I don't think it's hopeless scbuk
- The last TON talks about combining thinnings to reduce the backlog. If you were waiting for money for your first thinning then:
a. you weren't going to get much money this time anyway
b. I would guess the 7/10 year thinnings are most likely to be combined, so:
c. that pushes out the deadline for the theoretical first thinning schedule for 2000/2001 planted trees to 2011/2012 at most (assuming 7/10 year thinnings combined at 10 years and "10 years" means "10 full years of growth after planting", which is not clear)
- Thinnings happen at TATF's sole discretion, according to the contract, based on what they think is best for the trees. The measure of whether they are doing what's right or not is what they are doing with their own private plantings, in other words, if they thin their own trees they had better thin ours.
- the contract is very loose in terms of TATF's responsibility to us. It intentionally doesn't specify very much that they are actually required to do. Most of it is "best effort" kind of stuff, and they are solely charged with determining what their best effort is. The only specifics are the hooks to their own trees (which are probably hard to nail down as well) and the promise to cut the remaining trees down at 25 years.
- still, I think it's a positive that apparently they haven't breached the contract to this point (whether it's because it's so loose or not). That leaves room for this to be a legitimate business that is having troubles, rather than a scam. There was no promise to catch up last year, only an expectation/hope.
- I don't think we should watch the early thinnings to see if they are fulfilling the contract. If I were TATF and 3 years or more behind on thinnings, I wouldn't be trying to catch up on the 7/10 year thinnings first. I would be working on doing the thinnings that have a potential to put some cash in peoples pockets.
