America returns to active forest management

[rangerrebew]

America returns to active forest management
By
Duggan Flanakin
|
April 13th, 2025
 
Back on March 1, President Trump fired a double-barrel shotgun at the long-held preservationist U.S. mantra that for nearly a century has dealt heavy blows to American forests, forest animals, and the humans whose homes abut government forest lands.

They first addressed what the White House calls “the threat to national security from imports of timber and lumber.” Even though the U.S. has ample timber resources, the nation has been a net importer of lumber since 2016. “Wood products,” said the President, play “a vital role in key downstream civilian industries, including construction.”

Reliance on imported lumber became critical during the COVID pandemic when the producer price of softwood veneer and plywood manufacturing over tripled from $205 in January 2020 to $702 in June 2021; the December 2024 price was still higher than the pre-COVID peak.

That upward jerk devastated the home-building industry. Contractors who had hoped construction prices would return to pre-pandemic levels are still waiting, and the short-term effects of the Trump tariffs could keep prices high for months to come.

https://www.cfact.org/2025/04/13/america-returns-to-active-forest-management/

[Smokin Joe]

The National Forests were extensively logged in the East during the 1920s. Those old logging roads became the network of trails we often hiked along, but in a pinch, well equipped and designed brush fire units could run along those to get to fires.
Letting those go to crap with deadfall and debris has helped no one, least the trees themselves, has created fire hazards, and shut down the sawmills which used to process timber, all over. Especially devastating the lumber industry in the Western part of the US.

Do we really need to farm out lumber production to Canada and elsewhere? No. We have the means right here, and every year when the skies of North Dakota become thick with smoke from the Pacific Northwest, Montana, and Canada, I consider how much money, how many jobs, and how much wasted timber is going up in smoke.