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--></style><title>Logging jobs: Timber wars never ended: Encore boom
goes bu</title></head><body>
<div><font face="Arial" size="-5" color="#000000"><b>IMPACT OF THE
GREAT RECESSION ON THE FOREST PRODUCTS INDUSTRY IN THE WESTERN UNITED
STATES</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><b>Charles E. Keegan, Colin B. Sorenson, Todd
A. Morgan, Jean M. Daniels, and Steven W. Hayes1</b></font></div>
<div><font face="Arial">Abstract.-Wood product prices and production
fell dramatically in 2009 as a severe recession and massive decline in
U.S. housing led to a global financial crisis. In 2009 and 2010,
virtually every major western mill suffered curtailments and 30 large
mills closed permanently. Sales value of wood and paper products in
the West dropped from $49 billion in 2005 to $34 billion in 2009.
Employment declined by 71,000 workers and lumber production fell by
almost 80 percent from 2005 to 2009. Capacity utilization at sawmills
and other timber-using facilities in the West fell from more than 80
percent in 2005 to just over 50 percent in 2009 and 2010. With the
exception of exports and some paper markets, U.S. wood products
markets have improved little since the recession officially ended in
2009. Modest improvements are expected in domestic markets in the
short term, but substantial improvements are unlikely until 2014 or
later, as U.S. home building recovers and global demand increases.
Much of the West retains the bulk of its pre-recession (2006) capacity
and mills could respond quickly to increased demand spurred by
economic recovery.</font></div>
<div><font face="Arial"><i>NOTE: A longer version of this paper with
additional tables, figures, and a full Literature Cited section was
published in the Forest Products Journal, Vol. 61, No. 8, in July
2012.</i></font></div>
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"Tree mortality in relatively undisturbed old-growth forests
across the West has risen even when not triggered by wildfires or
insect infestations."<br>
<br>
Rocky Mountain Forests at Risk<br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="-2"
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>http://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2014/09/Rocky-Mount<span
></span>ain-Forests-at-Risk-Full-Report.pdf</font></div>
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<div><font face="Verdana" size="-1" color="#000000">"Other
scientists have made similar projections. According to one study, also
assuming medium-high levels of future emissions, conifer forests are
projected to shrink by half, from 24 percent of the West's land cover
in 2005 to 11 percent by 2100. The Southwest in particular is
projected to lose nearly all its conifer forests. Shrublands and
grasslands would largely replace the conifer forests, expanding from
11 percent to 25 percent of land cover in the West. These changes
could occur rapidly and should begin to become evident around 2030,
when average western temperatures reach about 1.6°F above
late-twentieth-century levels--or 0.6°F of further warming (Jiang et
al. 2013)."</font></div>
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