More than four billion board feet of Oregon timber was harvested last year. However, the harvest was a 1.74 decrease from 2013, and might decrease again in 2015 due to the problems at the slow ports and fewer-than-expected housing starts at the beginning of the year.
The Oregon Department of Forestry released a report Tuesday on the year-end numbers of how much of Oregon’s 30.2 million acres of forestland were harvested for timber. For 2014, that number was 4.13 billion board feet.
Here’s a breakdown of the numbers:
• The federal Bureau of Land Management cut 209 million board feet — a 26.67 percent increase over 2013. Much of that comes from salvaging logs in the Douglas Complex wildfire area, and cutting green timber while prices were high.
• The U.S. Forest Service cut 387 million board feet — a decrease of 1.28 percent statewide. However, east of the Cascades, the Forest Service increased harvesting 32 percent, taking from Lake, Grant and Harney counties.
• State-owned timber lands contributed 230 million board feet — a 8.7 percent decreased from 2013.
• Harvests on Native American forestlands decreased about 14 percent from 66 million board feet in 2013 to 57 million board feet in 2014.
• Private industry harvests decreased 4.96 percent statewide, mostly on land east of the Cascades. The 2014 harvest totaled 2.63 billion board feet.
So what’s the takeaway? While harvest numbers vary by year, more than four billion board feet is expected to hold in 2015, for the third year in a row. However, there are several factors that affect the industry each year — the demand for new development, the ability to export, wildfires — which are increasingly common as hot weather and drought set in — and how the forests are managed. The Bureau of Land Management and Oregon are reconfiguring forest management plans currently.
From Oregon Live: https://www.oregonlive.com/business/index.ssf/2015/07/oregon_timber_harvests_over_4.html