On a Saturday morning in Twiggs County, the first light breaks across planted pines at Fieldstone Preserve.Boots crunch gravel roads. A flock of mallards stirs above the ponds. And in the bunkhouse, kids who spent the night without phones or tablets rub the sleep from their eyes, eager to head into the woods.“We call it like the no-tablets zone,” said landowner Clark Haddock. “It’s so hard to ​get kids out from the TV or away from their phone. But that’s one thing my wife and I have enjoyed — going out in the woods on a Friday night or Saturday, being there four or five hours, and no one’s on the phone. That’s
just unheard of today with young kids.”

For Haddock, Fieldstone is a family project, a community gathering place, and a living example of how working forests benefit wildlife, sustain traditions and create opportunities for landowners.

​Wildlife Needs Working Forests
Across Georgia, working forests are lifelines for wildlife. They provide food, shelter and breeding grounds for countless species.

“Many of Georgia’s wildlife species depend on forests to find the food, water and shelter they need to survive and raise their young,” said Georgia Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Walter Rabon. “When forests aren’t healthy or well-managed, those species can start to disappear.”

Active management — tracts of varying age and species type, maintaining open areas, thinning, prescribed burning and controlling invasive plants — is what turns acres of trees into thriving ecosystems.

These practices don’t just create habitat for game species like deer, turkey and quail. They also protect at-risk wildlife, filter water and store carbon. According to the National Alliance of Forest Owners’ (NAFO) 2025 Environmental Benefits of Working Forests report, forests support 80% of terrestrial species across the U.S., and hunting-dependent game populations flourish where forests are managed with intention.

At Fieldstone, Haddock is putting those tools into practice.

“We’ve got about a 60-acre tract of planted pines that we focused on for quail habitat,” he said. “We’ve done a lot of
cleaning out and planting, and we’re hoping that this time next year… we’ll see some coveys fly up where this habitat’s starting to come back. Wild coveys are like a needle in a haystack, but we’re pretty confident the return on labor will pay off.”

Haddock has released mallards, managed deer populations with a “let them grow” approach, and trapped hogs that destroy habitat — all with the intention of encouraging rich biodiversity within his forests.

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Tradition in the Woods
For Georgians, the outdoors is heritage. “For many hunters in Georgia, time spent in the woods is about more than the hunt,” Rabon said. “It is about tradition and making memories outdoors.”

Each year, hundreds of thousands of hunters take to Georgia’s forests, sustaining a $2 billion hunting economy that supports nearly 20,000 jobs. But behind those numbers are countless moments like the ones Haddock has seen at Fieldstone.

​“This past season, we probably had 10 or 12 first-time duck hunters, kids under 18,” he said. “That just sort of lights your heart on fire. Seeing a young kid shoot their first duck, and they’re just like, wow, what have I been missing?”

These experiences connect young people to the land at a time when fewer are growing up hunting or fishing.
“Growing up, it was just like, if you’re a guy, you hunted,” Haddock said. “Now, in my daughter’s high school class, I feel like maybe a third of boys hunt. That’s just not the direction I hope we’re going. We need to provide opportunities to get kids outside.”

Landowners as Conservation Leaders

The vast majority of Georgia’s forests are privately owned — a whopping 90% — meaning the future of wildlife depends on the decisions of landowners.

“Healthy wildlife populations really depend on good forest management on these lands,” said Rabon. “Good forest
management can include things like regular timber harvests to let sunlight ​reach the forest floor, prescribed fires
every few years, and controlling invasive or unwanted plants.”

And increasingly, those landowners are meeting a growing demand for outdoor recreation. Haddock has seen it firsthand.

“In just a year and a half… everybody I know that’s been selling property, a lot of people from major cities are really coming into rural Georgia and buying up these hunting reserves,” he said.

That demand can be a challenge, but it also affirms the value of investment.

“In a year and a half, after all the work we’ve done, my appraisal came back 30% up,” Haddock said. “That surprised me. But it tells me we’re building something that works.”

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‘Benefits that Last
For landowners, the benefits of wildlife-focused forestry go beyond dollar value. They include healthier soils, cleaner water, more resilient forests, and a chance to shape family legacies around the outdoors.

NAFO’s research notes that hunting and recreation also “help maintain strong cultural and community connections to working lands,” ensuring forests remain
forests for the long term.

Haddock believes the investment is worth it — for the land, the wildlife and the memories.

“Whether you’re planting food plots or fixing roads or just walking the woods, you’re building something,” he said. “And that something can last.” ■
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John Casey is a strategic communications professional who supports clients through the art of storytelling. In his downtime, John can be found hunting and
fishing on his family’s centennial farm in Northwest Georgia.

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