Hard times are forecast

I I ARD TIMES are ahead for the I I state's consumers, according to C. R. Bratten of the California Forest Protective Association, but the long term outlook is optimistic, he told a North American Wholesale Lumber Association regional meeting recently in Redding.

He attributed the expected hard times "to an alliance between the environmental movement and the prevailing authoritarian attitude that favors power conc.entrated in governmental authority.. The ability of timber owners to control and cut their own lands was central to his speech.

Pete Niebling, Western manager of NAWLA, presented their forecast of housing starts, the lumber industry's 1977 performance and detailed the services of the orsanization.