Page 2 - White Paper

“If future technology and wood demands generate sufficiently high values for timber as a raw material, then historical experience suggests that forests and forest management will thrive. If the value of timber
Station in West Virginia, has reported on data showing that
in recent years the U.S. has transitioned from lumber entering the high-value appearance markets to the majority now going into lower value industrial uses. More raw logs and chips versus finished, value-added products are being exported, which means fewer jobs and less revenue.
When viewed in total, all of the current trends in forest markets are alarming because they reveal a shrinking forest products industry as well as a diminished market share for U.S. companies in high- value global markets. Ultimately, this also means the loss of working forestland, an inability to cope with natural disasters and less capacity to conduct thinnings for timber stand improvement and wildfire and disease prevention.
is cheapened, however, through low-value use or insufficient forest product technology development, then forests may face significant challenges regarding their future
sustainability.”
—Peter Ince,
USDA ForeSt ProDUctS LAb
aMerican FOresTs are sTill The MOsT PrODUcTiVe WOrlDWiDe
Despite the dramatic decreases
in mills, jobs and public land management; shifting land ownerships; soaring imports; and persistent recession since 2008, the U.S. remains the world’s largest producer of industrial timber in the world and second largest exporter, after Canada. Our abundant forest resources, private property rights, free market economy, high living standard and low trade barriers - explain why we both produce and import the most forest products worldwide.
Our nation’s forests truly are
a strategic natural resource with capacity to be sustainably managed and provide the ecosystem services our society
appreciates and requires (water, air, wildlife, tourism, etc.). Forest data collected through the Forest Inventory and Analysis National Program (FIA) shows that as of the 1990s, the volume of standing timber in the U.S. was 30 percent greater than in 1952.
Today, only about one quarter of forest growth is harvested from the lands designated as suitable for timber management. Success in conserving forests can be attributed to forest management principles that incorporate managed fire and multiple use policies, according
to Doug MacCleery in American Forests: A History of Resiliency and Recovery.
Peter Ince, USDA Forest Products Lab, concluded in his recent book Sustainable Development in the Forest Products Industry that the lowest rates of deforestation and forest carbon emissions occur in regions of the world with the highest rates of forest product output.
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