Oregon’s annual timber harvest jumped 13% in 2011, reaching 3.65 billion board feet. Large private forest owners, taking advantage of a continued hot export market to China and elsewhere, accounted for two-thirds of the harvest despite having only 19% of the state’s timberland.
Timber harvest on federal land managed by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management increased 47% and 24%, respectively, as mill owners sought logs to replace what was being shipped overseas, said Brandon Kaetzel, economist with the Oregon Department of Forestry. By law, logs cut on federal land cannot be exported.
Despite the increases, Oregon’s timber harvest remains a splinter of what it was in the past. The total harvest on federal land, 539 million board feet, compares to the nearly 5 billion board feet cut on Forest Service and BLM land in 1988.
The total harvest from all forests, federal, state, large and small private land and tribal, was less than half the 25 year high of about 8 billion board feet, Kaetzel said.
From Oregon Live: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/07/oregon_timber_harvest_jumps_13.html