Eastern and Western Timber Parallels: Different forests, same industry challenges

When most people picture the American logging industry, they imagine the Pacific Northwest (PNW). They think of towering Douglas firs, rugged loggers navigating steep mountain ridges, and decades of legal battles over old-growth forests and spotted owls. Imagining the Eastern timber states (mainly, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Virginia) usually evokes images of rolling hills, historic farms, and quiet forest lands.

But if you look deeper, you start to see the larger picture – the proverbial forest among the trees – and you can see a shift happening: the Eastern timber industry is wrestling with a mix of concerns that look oddly similar to the struggles of the PNW. Despite the different trees, the drama is very much the same. Here is a look at how the two regions are becoming “timber twins.”

THREAT OF NATURE: Fire vs. Water

A major enemy to the PNW timber industry is fire. Megafires tear through millions of acres annually. The detrimental impacts to the timber industry include massive asset loss for landowners, including not only the immediate loss of mature harvestable timber, but also future harvests, as young trees are consumed before they mature. The trees that survive a fire often are degraded, lowering the quality of the timber and disrupting timber supplies. Loggers either are forced into frantic “salvage logging” operations to harvest scorched trees before they rot, or are prevented from salvaging trees by regulations of the federally held lands.

In the Easten states, a major enemy is water. Particularly along the coastal states, water is infiltrating low-lying forests. Some allege that this is due to rising sea levels, but hurricanes also are a major contributor, dumping excessive rainwater and seawater into the soil, turning it into brackish mud. Additionally, lands near the Chesapeake Bay are sinking, exacerbating the issue in those areas. In low-lying land, the excess water cannot drain properly causing standing water that depletes the trees of nutrients and increases the salinity of the soil. Once the salt infiltrates the soil, the land typically is permanently converted to a toxic marshland, creating a “ghost forest” of decaying trees.

Understandably, timber requires a long-term growth cycle to be profitable, often taking decades before timber can be harvested; thus, whether loss comes by devastation of forest fires or the depleting nature of saltwater, forest landowners are rendered financially vulnerable to the environment.

CLASH OF CONSERVATION: Old Growth vs. Proforestation

For decades, the PNW has been defined by the “Timber Wars.” Since the 1980s, environmentalists have fiercely opposed timber corporations and the federal government over the clear-cutting of ancient, old-growth forests – pitting the economic livelihoods of logging communities against the preservation of endangered ecosystems. The battle began after a 1980 study showed that old-growth forests were disappearing, endangering the Northern Spotted Owl. The owl became the stand-in advocate for the conservation campaign, leading the PNW states to pass legislation halting certain logging projects. As the clash escalated, environmentalists became physically involved by blockading logging roads, burying themselves in the ground, and chaining themselves to trees. Ultimately, the battle reached the courts, where legislation was enacted (the “Northwest Forest Plan”) to drastically reduce logging on federal lands and shift the PNW toward more sustainable forestry, which in turn, drastically and permanently altered the economy and social structure of rural logging towns.

The Eastern states are entering their own version of Timber Wars. The timber industry in the East relies heavily on private, heavily harvested woodlands where governmental controls aren’t as easily imposed; therefore, conservation is driven by a movement called “proforestation.” Different from reforestation, which is the intentional replanting of existing forests that have been depleted, proforestation promotes leaving the existing, previously logged or “middle-aged” forests untouched. Essentially, reforestation requires active intervention and proforestation relies on inaction and patiently allowing nature to take its course over the decades. Proponents argue that proforestation allows the forests to grow old without interference and focuses on letting trees reach their full potential rather than planting new saplings or harvesting timber. Those who oppose argue that designating large tracts of land for proforestation limits the available timber inventory and detrimentally affects the timber economy. Additionally, it is argued that the “hands off” approach of proforestation creates stagnant, single-age forests that, without strategic thinning, will be more prone to devastating outbreaks of pests.

SIZE CONSIDERATIONS: Big Corporations vs. Backyard Plots

In the PNW, the logging crisis is one of scale: massive federal land restrictions have squeezed out small, family-owned logging operations, leaving the industry dominated by heavily automated corporate giants. Decades of federal land restrictions in the PNW (triggered mostly by the Northwest Forest Plan) drastically reduced timber harvests on public forests. This shift forced an overall contraction of the industry and favored large, highly automated corporate entities, while starving local, independent sawmills of their traditional wood supply. The contraction of the industry severely impacted historic timber-dependent communities.

In the Eastern states, the squeeze is happening in reverse, through a process called parcelization. As much as 80% of Eastern forests are privately owned, with nearly 70% held by families and small farm owners (U.S. Forest Service, Northern Research Station, Forest Inventory and Analysis Report, July 2010). As older generations pass down land, large forest tracts are being subdivided to build suburban neighborhoods. Loggers face a logistical nightmare of moving heavy machinery down residential roads simply to harvest a tiny plot, which drives up costs and lowers profit margins. Furthermore, when land is divided among many small owners, timber buyers must negotiate with dozens of individuals (with differing landowner objectives) rather than a few large landholders, making long-term supply planning highly unpredictable. It also reduces the total volume of timber actively available for commercial production.

THE BOTTOM LINE

The days of viewing forestry through a purely regional lens are passing away. Whether a logger is navigating a steep ridge in Oregon or dodging suburban traffic and saltwater swamps in Virginia, the challenges for the timber industry are identical. Modern loggers aren’t just cutting down trees nowadays, they are operating on the front lines of climate change activism, neighborhood politics, and global economics.

If you have questions about this article, please contact Denise Reverski (dreverski@setlifflaw.com) at (804) 377-1272 or Steve Setliff (804) 377-1261.