Working forests sequester carbon, promote healthy ecosystems, protect water quality and wildlife habitat as well as improve resilience to insects, disease and catastrophic wildfires. Healthy, stable markets for wood products are essential to ensure forests can stay as forests protecting ecosystems, producing renewable resources, and providing recreation.

How do markets effect long-term forest viability?

A strong wood product market encourages sustainable forest management and motivates landowners to invest in healthy forest practices. Healthy markets encourage active, sustainable management of forests, prevent land conversion (loss of forest land), and support wildfire mitigation by ensuring that landowners have an economic incentive to care for and protect forests.

Markets for low-value wood (small-diameter trees, pulp, etc.) are especially important for incentivizing thinning, wildfire management and overall management for forest resilience. These types of wood products and byproducts are often used for bioenergy production or in mass timber panels.

Markets for wood products also support the economic stability of rural economies. The forestry and forest products industry directly employs over 2 million people across the U.S., the majority of which are working family-wage jobs in rural, manufacturing communities who rely on mills and forests to provide jobs, taxes, and revenue.