Westervelt Company officials like to say that their focus is on quarter-centuries, not quarterly financial reports. That mindset, which is focused on a long-term approach, has helped the Alabama-based land-management company stay in business for more than 140 years and expand its forestland holdings to more than 600,000 acres across six states.

In addition to ensuring that its timberlands meet the certification standards established by the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the Forest Stewardship Council, Westervelt also provides more than 100,000 acres of wildlife-management assistance to private landowners and helps preserve 40,000 acres of wetland and endangered-species habitat through its Ecological Services Division.

Conservationist of the Year

Such initiatives led to The Westervelt Company being named the Conservationist of the Year at the 2025 Alabama Wildlife Federation’s Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards. The honor recognized Westervelt’s “legacy of responsible stewardship, community partnership, and unwavering dedication to conserving Alabama’s natural resources for generations to come.”

“It’s a huge honor that really means a lot to our owners and employees,” says Jonathan Lowery, vice president of sustainability and government relations for the Westervelt Company.

“We’ve always had an ethos of sustainability and stewardship and a long-term perspective in ensuring that our management practices maintain water and air quality, wildlife habitat, and productivity. We depend on the land to do what we do, so we want to treat it right. The land is our factory. If we take care of the land, it helps us make our product, which is timber.”

Vertically Integrated Operations

Westervelt has taken an additional step to increase its timber productivity in recent years by expanding its seedling nursery, located about 40 miles from the company’s headquarters in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. The nursery now grows approximately 11 million longleaf and loblolly seedlings — more than double the amount produced 10 years ago.

“Westervelt has had a nursery since the early 1980s, and for most of our history, we have just focused on growing seedlings for our own reforestation,” Westervelt Forest Improvement Manager James Owens says.

“Now we use about 70 percent of what we grow and sell about 30 percent on the open market,” Owens adds.

Westervelt’s vertically integrated operations also include a lumber mill in Moundville, which opened in 1997, and another in Thom-asville, which opened in 2021. Owens says part of the reason for the nursery expansion is to provide high-quality seedlings to landowners, who can then grow trees that potentially might be sold back to one of these mills.

“We are members of the North Carolina State University Tree Improvement Cooperative, which gives us access to the best genetics out there to produce disease-resistant trees that grow fast and straight,” Owens said. He adds, “Now we can offer these really good, high-genetic trees to other landowners, with the hopes that some of them will end up in our sawmills.”

Published in The Land Report Winter 2025.