EDITORIAL

DAVID CUTLER publisher

What do yon mean you don't have any?

T HE buying of products is generally a pretty ! straight forward transaction. lluyer and seller agree on price and quantity and the product is delivered. Ilut amazingly, this may be changing in the forest products industry.

Should certain of the demands of the socalled environmentalists be realized we may indeed see a time when you can't buy what you want. Or if you can, it won't be in an adequate supply or priced affordably. To hear some tell it, that day may be closer than we think.

Can supply from America's vast and bountiful forests really be that threatened? As an example, take oregon, the biggest timber producing state in the country. Should bans on logging in the National F'orests in that state be passed, from 300ft to 5006 of the supply for its mills would be permanently lost. In 1988 5606 of the supply for Oregon mills came from federal timber. With inevitable millclosures. it doesn't take a marketing expert to see a serious crimp in the flow of products to market. l;ewer mills, producing smaller quantities of fewer products, make it seem plausible that outright forest products shortages could occur.

While the details vary in different parts of the country, no area is immune to preservationist threats to lessen or eliminate all cutting of federal timber. In some areas they seek to prohibit property owners from harvesting timber on their own lands.

It's not clear at this juncture whether potential losses of logs can be made up elsewhere, should severe restrictions be placed on cutting trees in the National liorests.

One thing is certain: the possibility of forest products shortages is all too real.

Tumbep

'f" Yelfow Pine Boords 'C','D', #2

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2x4 lhru 2x12

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