Danny Dructor

About 10 years ago, I attended a town hall meeting that my US Congressman hosted that was supposed to be about economic development in rural communities across East Texas.  We had just recently seen the shuttering of two paper mills and several sawmills, and the situation was looking grim for many timber dependent rural East Texas communities.  What the Congressman had to offer was the idea that we begin to look for alternatives to the forest products industry for economic growth, but refused to acknowledge was that our primary resource in the region was timber.  Rather than reinvent the wheel, I recommended that we look to encourage more timber related entities to move into East Texas via tax abatements and other incentives; after all, we had the feedstock.  Ten years later, many mills have changed ownership, much of what once was industrial forest lands are now owned by investment groups such as TIMO’s and REIT’s, and the family owned forest landowner and loggers in the area are still looking for better markets and prices for their products.  Needless to say, nothing changed and the Congressman is no longer in office.

Over the past several decades, we have seen the collapse of our federal timber sale program; escalating land prices have caused many private forest land owners to convert or sell their properties for higher, value added uses; logging capacity has diminished; and, the number of mills manufacturing traditional forest products here in the US has been greatly reduced.  These challenges have left a vacuum across America’s rural regions, hurting economies, promoting poverty, and causing general concern over the survivability of those timber dependent rural communities.

For those communities, there is hope, but it will require change; cultural change.  Community leaders will need to embrace change just as much as those that are growing, harvesting and manufacturing timber, and realize that there are more opportunities out there than just the jobs that a traditional manufacturer can supply.  The real change will come when those community leaders recognize that you can do more with the abundant supply of fiber that is found in their region.

We are talking about wood for energy; electrical energy from cogeneration projects to power our buildings, wood pellet projects to heat our homes, and biofuels projects from wood to help fuel our automobiles.  All of these projects have the potential to supply jobs and create wealth in rural economies that have lost their traditional forest products infrastructure, but how many community leaders are even aware that these technologies exist?

With the Obama administration taking office in January, we must supply the knowledge that removing biomass from the forest, across all ownerships, can have the potential to create new market, revitalize rural communities, promote healthy forests, and create the “green jobs” that the administration is seeking to help stimulate economies and lessen our dependence on foreign oil while at the same time reducing greenhouse gas emissions and helping to improve our environment.

Therein lays the opportunity.  It is our responsibility to educate those decision makers about the new industry, about the potential new markets and about the economic impact that these facilities could have in their area.  There will be organizations that will oppose the change, stating that it is “not sustainable,” or it “will cause our mill to close if we have to compete for the feedstock,” but science and truth can dispel these arguments if you arm yourself with them and prepare your audience.

Contact your local, state and federal officials and ask for their help to initiate change.  Work with other groups of concerned citizens to promote policies that will stimulate the economy in your region.  It is up to you as a concerned resident of your community to help initiate the change that is not only going to save your community from devastation, but to also bring this industry into the 21st century.