With more and more forest being set aside for legitimate environmental reasons or for little more than termite food and consumer demand for wood products growing faster than the wood supply, this necessary goal seems impossible to achieve. Several years ago foresters warned of timber shortages by the year 2010 if we did not replant what we were currently harvesting. At that time we or God were replanting one out of every nine acres harvested. Today about six out of that nine ends up with a decent stand of timber.

Timberland conversion to other non tree growing uses has some what leveled off. But, conversion of timberland to other non-harvesting uses has grown at frightening rates. A review of the 1990 US Forest Service timber survey for all land in NC revealed ownership goals for non-harvesting uses reducing available supplies of hardwood lumber by as much as forty percent. Pine losses were in the ten to fifteen percent range. This was before all the wildlife refuge tie ups.

Combine reductions in supply due to the west coast spotted owl controversy, shift in US Forest Service policy to restricting clear cutting or even harvesting on many areas, wetland regulations, two hurricanes, and over cutting young quality hardwood for chips and we are headed for major shortages of a resource that could be sustain current harvesting rates.

Those of you who are reforesting and managing your timber will have a gold mine for yourself or your kids unless somebody figures out a way to make lumber from garbage. Currently we have very competitive markets for timber. Tracts of timber often have three to ten serious buyers biding against each other. The future will have fewer buyers and fewer mills (jobs) in the area to manufacture the resource.

Consumers will be paying higher percentages of their income for housing and other forest related products from toothpaste to toilet paper. Unless current downward trends are reversed, consumers will have to substantially reduce paper use from an estimated 600 pounds annually and lumber will be imported from Russia.

Environmentally, we will be faced with gains and losses. Many species of wildlife will benefit from managed habitat. Management costs will be staggering. Areas cannot be simply left alone to take care of themselves. As an example, fire plays an important part in the natural scheme of things. Uncontrolled it can clear cut thousands of acres, fill streams with silt, reduce air quality and take thousands of lives. The same year of the Chicago fire, forest fires killed several thousand people and burned entire towns off the map. Left unharvested, most of the wood we now use would be burned. The carbon dioxide stored in that wood would return to the air.

We are faced with tough resource management decisions that must be made intelligently now while we still have time to plan ahead. Do your part by managing your timber, consume wisely, and stay involved in the decisions made on the local, state and national level. Your future and that of your children and grandchildren depend on it.

Revised 2/16/2006.