National Forest Logging Program Loses Over

• In 1891, the US Forest Reserve System was established to preserve watersheds and protect the land from logging. However, on June 4, 1897, the timber industry succeeded in opening up the forests to timber cutting—by a "rider" hidden in an Interior Department appropriations bill.

• 69% of Americans want logging of our National Forests ended. (Market Strategies, Inc. and Lake, Sosin, Snell, Perry and Associates, Inc.)

• The National Forest timber sales program operated at a net loss to taxpayers of over $1.2 billion in fiscal year 1997. (John Muir Project, verified by Congressional Research Services)

• "Production of timber volume from the National Forests accounts for less than 5% of the total volume of timber produced in the United States" (US Forest Service). We dump three times that amount of wood into landfills each year!

• 72% of the timberland in the US, and most of the highly productive land, is in private ownership. The timber industry says it can meet domestic consumption from its own land.

• Ending commercial logging on public lands will greatly increase the value of private timberlands and the timber they contain. Subsidized public timber artificially lowers wood prices, providing an incentive for sustainable management of private timberlands. Government sale of cheap timber devalues all timberlands. It’s time for the Forest Service to abandon it’s role as a producer of commodities.

• Recreation, hunting and fishing in National Forests contribute vastly more income to the nation’s economy, and generate far more jobs, than logging on National Forests. If we ended all commercial logging on our nation’s forests, we could redirect these logging subsidies into timber community transition assistance.

• Nearly half the trees cut in the Northwest US are exported as raw logs, chips, pulp or other minimally-processed forest products. This trend is increasing nationwide as chipmills invade the South and Midwest. Meanwhile, annual plant fibers exist that are better suited to make paper than tree pulp.

• Not only do subsidized clearcuts and logging roads damage our last wild ecosystems, but a 1996 US government study found that logging on National Forests increases the risk of forest fires more than any other human activity.

• The timber industry claims that timber sales on public lands lose money because of environmental regulations, yet all environmental analysis, documentation, appeals and lawsuits cost only around $70 million—less than 5% of the total cost of the logging program. In truth, the losses are because the timber industry does not pay for the expenses of logging road construction, timber sale planning and administration, replanting and restoration expenses. The timber industry doesn’t pay to log our National Forests¾ YOU DO!

Produced by: Protect Our Public Lands, P.O. Box 25431, Eugene, OR 97402; (541) 349-8733

John A. Keslick, Jr., Tree Biologist, Tree Biological Laboratory,
Allegheny Defense Project, Keslick and Son Modern Arboriculture,
West Chester, PA.