SPRINGFIELD - A group of state lawmakers say they want to preserve the state's woodlands by giving tax breaks to landowners who preserve their forested tracts.

The lawmakers gathered in the Capitol on Thursday with representatives from a handful of special interest groups to tout the tax. The measure would shelter woodlands from the same tax treatment as agricultural land or commercial lots.

State Sen. John Sullivan, D-Rushville, said differing county-by-county definitions of farmland are forcing some landowners to try to farm poor agricultural land, or sell their wooded property in the hope of avoiding a higher tax.

Sullivan said the plan would affect only those tracts of non-residential land of five acres or more and the potential tax savings are significant.

The proposal could mean the difference between a landowner paying more than $50 per acre in property taxes versus $1 or $2 per acre, said Sullivan.

The legislation is the product of several months of hearings by a taskforce which began meeting last December.

State Sen. John O. Jones, R-Mt. Vernon, said he has received hundreds of phone calls from constituents scared about losing their timbered land because they could not afford to pay more in property taxes.

Jones warned that the clearcutting of property to have it valued as farmland presents a threat to the environment.

"We all know how valuable trees are to our environment. Some of this land does not need to be in production," he said. "Quite frankly it will be (washed) in our rivers if we start farming it, and we don't want that."

Todd Vandermyde, spokesman for the Illinois State Rifle Association, said Illinois has some of the best hunting in the nation but not enough of the land is preserved as wooded.

"The impact not having this (legislation) would have is that you would see a lot of ground that people currently allow hunting on to be clearcut and you would lose that habitat," he said. "The last thing we need to be doing in Illinois these days is losing the hunting grounds that we have access to."

The legislation, Senate Bill 17, awaits approval in both the House and Senate.