DON ANDRE STANDS WITH HIS FATHER’S MACHETE
AN INDUSTRY AND ENVIRONMENT IN DECLINE
The Oregon timber industry has been in decline since the
1980s. Market factors, concerns over habitat destruction and
increased automation of timber falling and milling have taken
significant chunks out of the timber economy.
Data compiled by Josh Lehner at the Oregon Office of
Economic Analysis show a steady decline in wood industry
jobs from between 60,000 and 90,000 in 1950-1980 to below
45,000 since 2000. While timber jobs have declined by about
half since their peak in the 1950s, Oregon’s population has
more than doubled.
Today about 75 percent of the timber harvest in Oregon
comes from corporate timber companies, according to
information from the Oregon Forest Resources Institute, an
industry sponsored group. Industrial timberland accounts for
about 6 million acres in Oregon, about 20 percent of the state’s
overall forestland.
Milled logs have been cut and processed, adding value to
them. Depending on market dynamics, as many as one in five
logs exported from Oregon is unmilled, which reduces the
value added to Oregon timber in favor of market efficiencies
and reduces the lumber availability for local mills.
The timber industry embraces a plantation model based
on clearcutting and replanting, predominantly with the
economically valuable and fast-growing Douglas fir. This
model is practically mandated by the Oregon Forest Practices
Act (OFPA), which requires replanting of harvested areas and
suppression of competition in replanted stands.
The plantation requirement leads to one of the most
controversial practices of modern forestry — aerial pesticide
spraying. A rash of complaints over health impacts and
concerns over water contamination from pesticide drift has
generated campaigns to ban the practice. In Lincoln County a
ballot initiative to ban aerial spraying of pesticides narrowly
won earlier this year. Advocates are eyeing more local and
perhaps statewide bans in the future.
PHOTO COURTESY DON ANDRE
eugeneweekly.com • A ugust 3, 2017
11