Taking a toll on timber.

• Author: Phelps, Jack E.
• Position: Alaska's forest products industry - Industry Overview

Despite strong sales to Asian markets, Alaska's forest products industry faces competition from abroad -- and challenges at home.

Alaska's forest harvest is a mixed bag. Although timber exports to Asia and particularly Japan continue as an industry mainstay, the state's forest products industry faces heavy competition from Russia and Finland, among others. Timber supply continues to be a problem. According to the Alaska Department of Labor, timber employment, 73 percent of which is in Southeast, continues to slide from a high of about 4,000 in 1990 to about 2,800 now. About 400 of the jobs lost come from the pulp sector with the closing of the Sitka mill.

Housing starts in Japan remain high, good news for the state's timber industry. Markets for Alaska timber around the Pacific Rim have been good now for five years, according to Koncor Forest Products president John Sturgeon. "They are down a little from the peak in March and April of 1993," he says, "but they're still good."

Juneau-based Native corporation Sealaska Corp., the largest exporter of round logs in Alaska, is taking advantage of the Asian demand for timber. The company is currently harvesting trees from four sites around Southeast, says company spokesperson Vikki Mata. Sealaska logs are going to Korea, Taiwan and Japan. Also in Southeast, loggers blame the U.S. Forest Service for failing to release enough timber in the Tongass National Forest to harvest.

Elsewhere in the state, the Interior's fledgling forest industry sees enormous potential from state lands, and logging operators are disappointed they didn't get help from this year's state legislature. In Southcentral, the region's largest logging firms are planning major harvests.

Now, here's the timber wrap-up from around the state.

Southeast Alaska. The Alaska Forest Association (AFA) blasted the U.S. Forest Service for releasing less timber than Congress has directed. "In fiscal year 1993, the Tongass National Forest sold only 298.1 million board feet of the 420 million directed by Congress," says AFA executive director Troy Reinhart.

"The TTRA (Tongass Timber Reform Act) directed the agency to seek to meet the market demand. The lack of sufficient timber sale programs and worker layoffs in 1993 is proof the Forest Service is not meeting the direction of Congress," Reinhart adds.

Gary Lidholm, spokesman for the Forest Service, sees it differently. "The act contained no volume figures," he says. "In fact, Congress said it might be hard to meet the market demands, and they called for a study. The study showed it would be difficult under present conditions to meet the market's demands and even the contractual volume commitments."

As for the 420 million board feet figure, Lidholm says it was the amount suggested in the Tongass Land Management Plan (TLMP) developed by the Forest Service in 1979. "But species viability controversies and other considerations are forcing us to come up with a new plan," he says. In fact, the National Forest Management Act requires the Forest Service to review regional management plans every 10 to 15 years.

An Associated Press article last April carried by several...