Alaska timber industry needs increased Tongass harvest: federal policies and politics have abolished large scale logging and manufacturing.

• Author: Graham, Owen J.
• Position: SPECIAL SECTION: Natural Resources

Alaska's timber industry varies greatly by region within the state and there is great potential for growth of the industry. There are roughly 126 million forested acres in Alaska, but only about 14 million acres support fast-growing commercial timber. This is about the same acreage of commercial timberland in Florida, Louisiana, and Tennessee. However, those similar size forests support thirty-six thousand, twenty-three thousand, and forty thousand jobs respectively, according to the 2002 American Forest & Paper Association State Economic Brochures. Alaska's commercial forest currently supports only about one thousand jobs statewide.

Interior Region

The Interior region has millions of acres of both hardwood and softwood timber, but much of the timber is isolated and costly to access. There are a number of small, stable sawmills in the region and there is a significant amount of timber cut for fuelwood. There is also a facility manufacturing wood pellets and compressed fuel logs in Fairbanks, but due to low oil prices, the pellet side of the operation is currently idle due to a large inventory of pellets. Residential space heating customers can switch back and forth between their pellet stove and oil furnaces and do so regularly based on the price per BTU; they go with the cheapest fuel option. Despite low oil prices biomass energy is still a good choice for many, especially remote communities. There are numerous communities heating public buildings, such us schools. These commercial scale biomass units use wood chips or solid wood as their fuel source.

The Tok region continues to make investments in manufacturing infrastructure. For instance, Young's Timber Inc. has recently installed a new sawmill and is in the process of adding both a compressed log line and a wood pellet mill. This project is being done in phases, but it is one of the few areas in the state where private financing is upgrading or building new wood manufacturing facilities. In part, this is because of the stable wood supply from the surrounding Tanana Valley State Forest and longer term timber sale contracts between the company and the Division of Forestry. The Interior forest products industry is modest, but individual companies and entrepreneurs continue to find markets and grow their forest-based businesses.

Southcentral Region

The Southcentral region has better access to its timberlands than the Interior region and the coastal areas have high volumes of fast growing softwoods. These coastal areas support a significant log export business, and the inland areas have a number of small sawmills operating.

The nation's second largest national forest, the Chugach, is in this region, and the commercial timberland in the Chugach National Forest could support up to 16 million board...