An industry under siege.

• Author: Phelps, Jack E.
• Position: Alaska's timber industry

Hard hit on all sides, Alaska's timber companies struggle to survive.

The timber harvest slowdown in the Pacific Northwest, caused largely by the spotted owl controversy and other environmental issues, has pushed the demand for Alaska timber -- and its price -- upward in recent months. The average price of export logs is 15 percent higher than it was last year. But Alaska timber industry experts are not turning cartwheels over the windfall. The sense that a slowdown can happen here next is too strong.

"It's just a matter of time," says Marilyn Maxwell, administrative manager for Koncor Forest Products. "Alaska is always a little behind on things like that." Koncor harvests private timber holdings. So far, environmental restrictions have not seriously crippled its operations (see related story on Pg. 78).

Other major players in the private sector are Sealaska Timber Corp. in Ketchikan and Klukwan Forest Products, a Juneau-based village corporation. Lesser players in the private timber business include Eyak Native Corp. which has been logging its holdings in northern southeast Alaska near Cordova. Controversy has raged around efforts of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council's efforts to buy Eyak land for an eastern Prince William Sound park, but the company so far has preferred to harvest its timber.

Making Money

Another Native village corporation that has used its 23,000-acre ANCSA allotment to good financial advantage is Saxman-based Cape Fox Corp. The company is primarily involved in exporting round logs harvested from its own holdings on Revillagigedo Island. "We're very successful, we're making money," says company spokesperson Ernesta Ballard.

Koncor president John Sturgeon says Koncor and other firms logging exclusively on private land have an advantage. "We have a sort of crystal ball by looking at California," he says. "Things kind of creep north after a while."

Troy Reinhart, executive director of the Alaska Forest Association, agrees. "California tends to be the bellwether for this type of thing, then it moves north," he says. By paying attention to those trends, the industry has been able to head off some problems, according to Sturgeon.

"We have a very tough Forest Practices Act up here," Sturgeon says, "which helps protect companies logging on private land." He adds that with ANCSA lands, the federal government entered into an obligation to allow the Native corporations to develop their resources for profitability. And...