Editor's Column
Guest Columns
Forest Facts
Some 1.5 billion trees are planted in the U.S. every year, about 5 trees for every American.
Annually, U.S. forestland owners plant about 6 trees for every tree harvested.
About one-third of America's original forest - some 300 million acres - have been converted to other uses, principally agriculture.
There are 26 million more acres of forestland in the Northeast than there were in 1900.
Today, forests blanket about one-third of the U.S. land base and about half the U.S. East.
U.S. annual growth rates have exceeded harvest rates since the 1940's.
Timber harvesting is forbidden on 50% of all National Forest lands in the U.S.
National Forests account for 20% of the nation's forestlands and 19% of its timberlands.
National Forests hold 46% of the nation's softwood timber inventory but only provide 6% of the annual harvest.
Since 1986, the harvest of timber from America's national forests has declined 70%.
In the West, 34% of all forestland and 54% of all timberlands are in national forests.
National forests in the Pacific Coast and Intermountain West regions hold 68% of the nation's softwood timber inventory, but provide less than 28% of annual harvest.
Forest density has increased 40% in the U.S. over the last 50 years.
Flying Finns
Biography - Bob Zybach
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Bob returned to school in the late 1980s, eventually gaining an undergraduate degree in Forestry (cultural resources management), a master’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies (forest history), and a doctorate in Environmental Sciences (landscape fire ecology), all at Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon. During that time he wrote numerous reports, editorials, and articles and gave several presentations, many of which are available online on his business website: www.NWMapsCo.com.
In 1996, working in concert with Wayne Giesy and the Board of a Philomath, Oregon nonprofit educational organization (Western Oregon Timber Supporters), Bob helped develop and implement an Internet-based strategy for educating Oregon students and teachers about cultural and natural resources management in Oregon: Oregon Websites and Watersheds Project, Inc. (www.ORWW.org). By 2009, ORWW had been continuously online for more than 12 years, with an average of nearly 150,000 visitors a year and with more than 200,000 visitors during each of the previous two years. ORWW also receives about 2,000 visitors a month at its YouTube video channel: www.youtube.com/ORWWmedia.
Bob is a sixth-generation Oregonian with two grown sons in the Portland, Oregon area, and a grandson attending community college in Corvallis. Much of his written and recorded work can be obtained online at: http://www.NWMapsCo.com/ZybachB/Curriculum_Vitae.htm
"We must always consider the environment and people together, as though they are one, because the
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."
P.O. Box 1290, Bigfork, MT. 59911 • Tel: (406) 837-0966 • Fax: (406) 258-0815 • Email:
human need to use natural resources is fundamental to our continued presence on earth."