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Alaska’s Forest Industry
Background
The forest products industry has been an important contributor to the Alaska economy for over a half century. Sitka spruce and hemlock of very high quality have been exported as logs, lumber and timbers into the Pacific Rim for the past four decades. During much of this time the lower quality portion of the timber was used to produce dissolving pulp which was sold around the world for producing rayon, pharmaceuticals and paper products.
Until the mid-1990s, most of the export volume of Alaska wood products originated from the coastal rain forest of Southeast Alaska. The Interior “boreal” forest in Alaska, containing stands of white spruce, cottonwood, aspen and paper birch, has not been harvested to a comparable degree.
Products produced by Alaska mills include large cants and flitches, shop lumber destined for remanufacture, dimensional lumber, railway ties, shakes and shingles, music wood, and a host of specialty and craft products.
Over the past 20 years, the industry has been in decline. Political and economic pressures, increased federal land withdrawals, a more stringent regulatory climate and environmental lawsuits forced the closure of Southeast Alaska’s two pulp mills. The Tongass Land Use Management Plan, issued in 1997, sharply reduced allowable harvest levels. However, emerging changes are moving the industry toward additional value-added processing through new, but limited opportunities on state, federal and private lands.
Facts & Economic Impact
- Alaska has 129 million acres of forested land, stretching from the coastal rain forest of Southeast and Southcentral Alaska to the boreal forest of the Interior.
- Four landlords manage Alaska’s forests: the federal government, 51%; state and local government, including the University of Alaska system, 25%; Native corporations, 24% and private landowners, 0.4%.
- Most commercial timber harvesting has taken place in the coastal zone, primarily on federal and Native corporation land in Southeast Alaska. Given less than one percent of Alaska is in conventional private ownership, private, non-industrial timberland owners play little role in supplying timber to industry.
- Current forest inventory data indicates the state owns 4.3 million acres of commercial forest capable of growing 20 cubic feet per acre annually.
- Logging and wood products employment remains a mere shadow of its recent past, falling from 4,600 jobs in 1990 to approximately 200 logging jobs and 400 forest products manufacturing jobs in 2008. Annual payroll lost since 1990 is well over $100 million. Payroll in recent years has fallen to approximately $15,300,000 for the logging segment of the industry and $14,750,000 for the forest products manufacturing sector.
- The State of Alaska Division of Forestry manages forests for multiple uses and sustained yield of renewable resources on 20 million acres of state land. This includes the Tanana Valley State Forest and the Haines State Forest. The Division conducts personal use, commercial timber, and fuel-wood sales. It emphasizes in-state use of wood for value-added processing.
- In fiscal year 2008, the State of Alaska sold 15.5 million board feet of timber in 67 sales, all of which went to Alaskan purchasers for value-added processing. These sales included timber to help support mills in Southeast Alaska, which have been hit hard by declines in federal sales, and sales for lumber, house logs, and fuel wood in Southcentral and Interior Alaska. When harvested, these sales will contribute $472,000 to state coffers. The timber sales were purchased by 41 different Alaskan businesses, including 18 new purchasers.
- State sales in Southeast Alaska provided critical volume to local mills during the recent downturn in federal timber sales. However, in the long term, state sales cannot sustain local mills without increased federal supply, given the state’s limited land base in the region.
- Timber harvests on Native lands in Southeast Alaska and on Afognak Island in Southcentral Alaska reached 50 million board feet in 2008. Timber harvests on these lands are projected to reach 100 million board feet in 2009. Private operations account for two-thirds of all logging jobs in Alaska.
- Only 30 million board feet of timber was harvested on federal land inside Southeast Alaska’s Tongass National Forest in 2008, matching the all-time low harvest of 2007. The annual harvest level originally set by the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act was 520 million board feet, the typical volume of timber harvested from the forest on an annual basis prior to 1980.
- Timber harvests in the Tongass are likely to be constrained to 30 million board feet of timber again in 2009, due to litigation by environmental groups targeting timber sales across the forest.
- The annual harvest ceiling set under the Tongass Land Management Plan is now 267 million board feet. The Forest Service concedes the harvest is unlikely to exceed 100 million board feet annually for a number of years. The installed manufacturing capacity remaining in the region is about 370 million board feet and the normal operating capacity for the currently-operating mills is about 200 million board feet annually.
- At 16.8 million acres, the Tongass is the largest national forest in America. Overall, 10 million acres of the Tongass is forested and 5.5 million acres is considered commercial timberland.
- Since 1907, only a little over 400,000 acres have been logged in the Tongass. Under the new Tongass plan, only 6.5 percent of commercial-grade old-growth acreage will be harvested between now and 2108.
- Two hundred years from now, at least 83 percent of the current old-growth would still remain intact in the forest.
- While the forest plan leaves 2.4 million acres in backcountry areas open to logging, only about 663,000 acres would actually be scheduled for harvesting over the next 100 years, and half of that acreage is second-growth timber cut decades ago. The 663,000 acres represents only 12 percent of the commercial timberlands.
- While the industry is currently constrained to harvesting about 30 million board feet of timber from the Tongass into the foreseeable future, the young-growth in the national forest is currently growing at a rate of over 500 million board feet annually. Unfortunately, it will be another 30 years before the young-growth is mature.
- At 5.9 million acres, the Chugach National Forest in coastal Southcentral Alaska is the second largest in America. Over the past 20 years, many of the trees in the Chugach have been killed by spruce bark beetle infestations. There is no commercial timber harvest occurring in the Chugach, nor is one provided for in the current management plan.
- Aerial forest health surveys covered 38.3 million acres of forest land in Alaska, and identified 1.2 million acres damaged by insects, disease, and abiotic agents. Hardwood defoliators were the most widespread pests, affecting birch, aspen, willow and alder across the state. Aspen defoliation affected three-quarters of a million acres. Although far below the epidemic levels in the 1990s, the spruce bark beetles were the major factor in mortality on 151,000 acres in 2008.
- Fuel wood demand was up sharply in 2008, including both personal use and commercial sales. The Division of Forestry issued 1,180 personal use firewood permits in FY08, a 10-fold increase from FY05, and the number of commercial firewood operations buying state wood doubled.
Web Links
Sources
- State of Alaska Department of Natural Resources
- U.S. Forest Service
- Alaska Forest Association
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