We need to tell our side of the story

By Keith Lanning President and General Manager California Redwood Association

THE redwood industry has pro-

I duced and sold redwood for more than a century - through good times and bad. We have survived depressions, war, government timberland acquisitions and building recessions.

In the 1990s we will be coping with increasing concern about the harvesting of old growth timber, cutting practices and animal habitats. We will also be dealing with a onesided media and environmentalist extremism in the presentation of these issues. We are not, however, facing these problems alone.

There are no easy solutions to these problems, but we believe the path to choose is communication on many levels. We are a responsible industry committed to timber production on a longterm basis. If the public is made aware of the true facts about the wood producing industry, they cannot in fairness form judgments based on one-sided emotional rhetoric produced by environmental extremists and media opportunists.

Unlike most building material manufacturers, the wood industry produces a truly renewable resource. For example, redwood manufacturers are harvesting many fully grown young trees after only 50 to 60 years. The public should be made aware that if America is to build the homes it needs to solve our current housing crisis, timber manufacturers must be allowed to continue to profitably, responsibly manage and harvest our forests.

It seems very important that we all be prepared to answer questions from the media, environmental groups and government entities in an open and concise way, presenting the information in formats that are easy for the lay person to under- stand. Only an informed public will be able to examine the forest management situation in all of its complexity and react to it intelligently.

We already have on our side excellent information outlets like the American Timber Council and the American Forest Resource Alliance. By continuing to work together as an industry, we hope to see the climate of hostility to timber producers imDrove.

Story at a Glance

Communication with the media and public is essential if the wood industry is to overcome our curnent bad press. with education the present climate of hostility can be overcome.

Closer to home, as redwood timberlands have matured, the redwood grade mixture 'we produce has changed. We anticipate the majority of redwood produced in the 1990s will be from second growth timber. However, there are some mills producing lumber from old growth trees. We anticipate this product mix to remain constant throughout the decade, providing no legislative land acquisitions are forced upon us.

We are confident that the redwood industry will be able to surmount the new problems of the 1990s in the same businesslike way that we have dealt with past difficulties and to supply future markets with our quality product.