Economic Impact of Privately Owned Forests in the U.S.

[Ron Scott]

http://nafoalliance.org/wp-content/uploads/NAFO-Economic-Impact-of-Privately-Owned-Forests-FINAL-2013.pdf

http://nafoalliance.org/economic-impact-report/

[beenthere]

Ron
What is your summary, or take, on those reports?

As well, what are your thoughts about the Alliance?

[mad murdock]

Very interesting reports Ron, Thanks for posting!!
A few "take aways" from my point of view

1) the disparity of public to private ownership in certain regions (namely mine)

2) the abysmal (at best) total economic contribution of public lands vs private lands

3) the great disparity between the PNW and the rest of the regions as to percentages of
    publich lands vs private, and the attendant employment numbers in the forestry related
    jobs.
  If anything it is a glaring proof positive of the very poor job that public entities are doing (and IMO the disservice to the public) in managing such a wasted and under utilized resource.  I sure hope that information like this can get out into the information streams of the general public, but maybe that is a foolish dream.. Oh well one can still dream : 

[Ron Scott]

Michigan Data from interactive U.S. map . . .

Private forest acres:  12,360,359
Public forest acres:  7,102,213
Direct, indirect, induces jobs from private forests:  63,445
Direct, indirect, induces payroll from private forests:  $2,256,577,261
Annual sales from private forests:  $7,562,272,515
Percentage of manufacturing:  5.58%
Note:  Michigan's GDP in 2012 was ~$400 billion

[jwilly3879]

Very interesting. Imagine the impact if so many small mills (in NY) were still open and if the wood wasn't exported but used in domestic manufacturing. Unfortunately in my area tourism is the major industry and sawmills and manufacturing don't seem fit in the local zoning so as they fade away they are not replaced.

[WDH]

Most people do not realize this, but according to the study, Georgia has the most timberland in the US, followed by Oregon and Alabama.  91% is privately owned. 

[petefrom bearswamp]

Murdock, If the west keeps burning any analysis will be moot.
But I suppose that your area is quite moist?

[mad murdock]

Murdock, If the west keeps burning any analysis will be moot.
But I suppose that your area is quite moist?

That is the sad thing, billions of dollars of timber value gets burned up every year in the west, and worse not only are we left with the loss of timber, the wheels of progress in the land management agencies are so mucked up by politics, that in many cases the salvage harvest never happens in time to get any merchanable products out, and of course top it off with the millions spent on "fighting" the wildland fires, not to mention the recent loss of life of the Hotshot crew in AZ,  A tragedy on so many levels.  My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of those whose lives were lost. 
  Here in the Willamette valley, and the norther oregon coast range, we had a very wet June, so we are in pretty good shape thus far.  It is real dry in Souther Oregon, and N. Cal.  Fires could be bad this year.  Season is just beginning in this region.
    On another note, it is worthy to make the point that the Great Land is not included in this study.  I was looking at the AFS (Alaska Fire Service) reports of this years fire season which has been a little more than an "average" year, has burned over 835,000 acres so far.   Season is winding down up there, but there are still fires going.  Alaksa has millions of acres of unmanaged timberland. If one were to factor that into the report, it would be staggering!
FWIW.
Mad Murdock

[enigmaT120]

I'm happy the public lands aren't managed like the corporate private forest lands are.  You would never see a patch of forest older than 50 years.  I prefer that the goals of public land emphasize habitat and recreation over extraction-based economic contribution. 

Where I think the public lands are wasted when the public can't get to them because all of the roads are closed.  The industrial forest land managers close the roads due to fire hazard, eventually even to people on foot or bicycle.  It's a hard call though, when we get idiots starting fires target shooting.  We've already had one fire in my area in May caused that way.  And a couple of years ago a guy was shooting a 50 caliber with tracers.  In July. 

Most of my experience is with the forest land in my area, in the coast range west of Salem.  I'm south of Mad Murdock, and the public lands in my area are BLM.  It's like a checkerboard in places, with square mile blocks of BLM and industrial forest lands.  The BLM lands are pretty much the ones where there are large trees. 

[mad murdock]

I agree partially with the sentiment enigmaT120, the problem I have is that there is seemingly no management on federal lands, in my view, since harvesting even on a select level is almost never done anymore, due to the endless EI studies, lawsuits and the like brought on by every group imaginable, etc.  The purpose of federal land management is supposed to be "multi-purose" as spelled out by the various agency charters, at their inception.  I could not agree more, that the scale was way tipped in favor of the users for many many years, (mills and big commercial timber interests), souring a lot of people on any kind of harvest management.  The State of Oregon does a pretty fair job managing the Tillamook SF.  The Siuslaw Nat'l Forest up here and the adjacent BLM ground as well as the federal lands over in eastern Marion Co, are woefully undermanaged,  I feel that a modest attempt at a harvest plan on some of the vast acres would be a win, win for all concerned.  It would mean more jobs, and more money generated from the sale of said timber, to go into property tax reief, or what have you.  The forced political 'non-management" that has gone on the last 25+ years is in the end just a major waste of potential in general, IMO.  Maybe it would all be moot since there needs to be a viable healthy market to sell raw logs into in the first place.  I just can't help but feel that there is a lot of room for improvement in the management on federal lands.