How Important is the Forestry Industry Now and in the Future?

Sunday, June 7, 2009

How Important is the Forestry Industry Now and in the Future?

Since the objective of my blog is to promote the forestry industry

and to exchange entrepreneurial experiences in this industry, I’d like to first define just what exactly the forestry industry is and

define its significance to society.

Any business that has revenue generated from the forest or forest land belongs to the forestry industry. The ones most well-known to

us are the lumber and paper industries. The ones lesser-known to people are the medicine, food, bio-energy, and recreational forestry

industries.

Just how important is the forestry industry in the US? About 33% of the total land area in the US is covered by forest. In some

eastern states, the forest land even covers 80 to 90% of the states. The traditional wood industry is often among the top three

manufacturing industries in many eastern states; for example, it ranks number one in Alabama with total annual revenue of $15.9

billion in 2005.

We have been harvesting trees from the forest lands in the US for decades. Nevertheless, we have more forest inventory now than we

had 60 years ago. Not only is it because trees grow back naturally, but also because we manage our forests intelligently and utilize the

wood efficiently. Most critically, from our needs from paper to lumber, we absolutely cannot live our daily lives without these

forest products.

In recent years, global warming due to carbon release into the atmosphere has become a major issue in our society. I happened to

run into some statistics showing the carbon release data for different raw materials, shown in the following table:

Total Carbon Release for Gathering,

Processing, Manufacturing, and Transporting One

Metric Ton of the Following Raw Materials

*carbon sequestration before logging

In other words, wood as a raw material was not only essential to us centuries ago, it is still just as important now and will be crucial to

us in the future.

With all these important merits, does the forestry industry today have a great social standing and reputation? Not really! The public

generally tends to think that if we continually use wood products, we are helping deplete the world’s forests. It is a misconception

propagandized by some special interest groups to meet their own agenda. However, we have nobody to blame but ourselves for

having this kind of image stored in people’s minds. Because we, the members of the forestry community, have not done a good enough

job to promote the right image for our industry.

So what is my proposal for a solution? Through using this blog, I will try my best to promote this fascinating industry by sharing my

35 years experiences in the industry (see my personal profile), especially the experience of being an entrepreneur.

Feel free to message me any questions or remarks you may have

so I can start to blog some specifics!

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