Well, after some arduous (and useless) work making my own forest (which was promply cut down due to recent squatters), I had an idea. Potted saplings that not only lasted longer before dying, but actually grew enough to skip the first "bonzai"stage when planted. Basically, what I'm saying is to allow saplings to live a bit longer by letting them be able to grow past that first stage (or maybe even the second) inside the pot without dying. Of course, if its allowed to mature into the stage where you can get branches you'd have to break the pot in order to plant it.
Eh, just a thought, maybe it would allow for foresters to sell potted saplings to industry people and such, and actually allow for some forests to survive in the long run.