Western lumber: here to stay

By Robert H. Hunt President Western Wood Products Association

ftelucrANT bankers, a dubious I leconomy wallowing in the wake of consumei doubt, a iimber supply gridlock with an environmental holy war threatening to make things even worse, a producing industry short on both raw materials and markets, and government and politicians chipping away at free enterprise rights at every tum ...hardly a scenario for positive fhinking if you are in the lumber busiNESS.

But take heart. In this business we create what both civilization and the environment muSt have to survive - wood products. It is but a matter of time (certainly the sooner the better) before that reality takes hold.

In the meantime, times are tough, and will get tougher before interlocking sets of pertinent but complex factors play themselves out. When that happens, don't look for the norms of the past to remain the norms of the future. And don't think there's a magic reset button that will put everything-in the comfortable formats we have known.

The bad news is the westem lumber industry no longer expects to continue producing at its historic volume levels. That will affect the expectations of the distribution svstem. one that perceptive retailers and wholesalers already understand. Western lumber produption, dogged for the past year by slow markets (which always come back), will be dogged next year by slow log supplies (which will not return to old levels of abundance in the foreseeable future).

Next year, even though logs will be extremely tight, the assumption is that industry creativity will surface enough of them to meet demand. If that is so, 1992's projected western lumber production of 20.480 billion board feet should be greater than average annual production of the two decades ending in 1990. In fact, WWPA sees 1991 production of 19.985 billion board feet also exceeding yearly averages of that period.

Even though current production is below all-time record years of the late 1980s. 20 billion board feet remains a lot of lumber. Western lumber manu- facturing and distribution are here to stay, but it is certain we will be changing to meet the changing times.

Any conceivable rationale that accepts human civilization will survive and flourish on this planet dictates that the natural environmental issue and the human economic issue can be resolved only if addressed simultaneously. There is a school of thought that says they are the same issue and always have been.

Consider the following in contrast with today's adversarial economic/environmental stand-offi

Endangered species habitat programs aggressively designed to incorporate human existence, rather than to terminate it. Logging practices that extend sensitivities to cover a multiplici- ty of environment-related values heretofore avoided due to high costs. Environmental benefits of wood products over non-wood products factored into specifications along with cost advantages, helping offset greater production costs needed to meet demanding environmental requirements.

Story at a Glance

Western wood products will survive despite tight log supp|ies...20.480 billion board feet production in '92...new thinking needed...environment and humans will learn to co-exist.

We have not yet begun to probe problems in this light. It is the thinking (if not the actual thought) of a leadership yet to emerge, and of an enlightened, environmentally-sensitive citizenry.

The efforts to protect our raw material base being conducted at the grassroots in the West and at legislative and regulatory levels in Washington are critical to the future of the forest products business. But the environmental positioning of our product has hardly besun.