Future Forestry Economy Project disappoints

After yawning through the now obligatory disclaimers and bureaucratic mumblings about findings that do not necessarily reflect the views of the sponsors, that absolve responsibility for and ownership or endorsement of statements and products, and that offer no representation or warranty to the accuracy or completeness of any information contained therein, I finally arrived at the 400-plus page text of the recently published Maine Future Forestry Economy Project.

The report, which can be found electronically at www.state.me.us/doc/mfs/fpm/ffe/, offers some insight about the future of the forest products industry in Maine, a beleaguered industry wrought with uncertainty. However, at times the report seems more notable for its omissions than for what it addresses. Specifically, while focusing on the development of new wood-processing technologies and business-friendly changes in taxation and environmental regulations, it fails to adequately recognize the connection between wood supply in the forest and wood supply at the mill.

For example, the authors do not appear to understand that you can innovate all you want on the wood- processing end, but the wood first has to reach the paper and lumber mills, wood composite facilities, furniture makers and other wood users in the state. Indeed, there are many in the forest products industry who appear to lack this appreciation. For example, accidentally or purposefully, some wood procurement organizations encourage logging overcapacity as a way to obtain wood and fiber at lower cost – the more loggers there are, the more wood procurement organizations can force them to compete with each other to sell their wood.

However, although the building of overcapacity in the logging industry by some round-wood and fiber-consuming mills may drive down wood prices in the short-term, in the long-term effect it has potentially devastating local effects on the forest products industry, since highly capitalized logging businesses cannot survive for long under these conditions. The result: Some mills are forced to slow production or shut down because they can’t buy enough logs to remain in full operation.

The recent downturn in logging capacity in Maine, and many other regions of the United States – a response, in part, to overbuilt logging work forces – may have provided surviving logging businesses with an opportunity to reinvest in their businesses, negotiate previously “take it or leave it” logging contracts with large landowners, and be more competitive when buying stumpage. However, it is unclear whether all of the survivors are careful loggers, or whether there are those who survived by cutting costs, including those costs associated with doing a good job in the woods. The state’s surviving logging businesses are likely comprised of both.

But is the logging work force stable in the long term? Responding to concerns about a shortage of logging labor and a reduction of production capacity in Maine, researchers at the University of Maine assessed occupational choice and prestige among the state’s loggers by systematically surveying 900 Maine loggers. Despite considerable familial attachment to logging, the study found that most loggers in the region would not encourage their sons or daughters to be loggers and only half of the loggers surveyed expected to be employed in logging in five years. The primary reasons cited for not encouraging their children to be loggers included logging’s poor wages and the lack of employment benefits.

Moreover, although most loggers identified positive attributes of their work as reasons for becoming loggers (e.g., they liked working outdoors), some said they logged because there were few alternatives or because they lacked the education for other employment. In addition, most loggers in the region felt the general public held logging in low esteem, a perception that appears to be shared by the general public.

For example, in a 1975 report “logger” was given an occupational status score similar to “migrant worker,” “packing house butcher,” “unskilled garage worker,” “unskilled factory laborer,” “railway, airport porter,” “laborer,” “warehouse hand” and “road construction laborer.” A 1983 study reported that the employment category “lumberman and woodchoppers” had the same occupational status score as “newsboys” and “busboys,” and a recently published national ranking of occupations by their desirability placed “logger” 248th of 250 occupations.

Results of this study have obvious implications for logging labor supply, labor recruitment efforts and wood supply in a state heavily dependent on the forest products industry. Taken together, the study results imply that success in retaining current loggers and recruiting future ones from among logging families will have less to do with their perceptions of logging’s occupational prestige, although these perceptions are not unimportant, and more to do with improvements in wages and employment benefits. The lack of social prestige associated with logging may have a greater impact on occupational choice among non-loggers and those with no familial attachment to logging, and continue to challenge efforts to recruit new loggers into the work force.

So, yes, let’s acknowledge innovation to prop up and even create new forest products businesses. But let’s not forget that these businesses can’t exist without raw material, and that the path from the woods to the mill passes through the logging community. If the logging community is not stable and healthy the system won’t work, and any innovations in wood processing that may be developed in Maine will ultimately be exported to some place where it is.

Andy Egan is a forestry professor at Laval University in Quebec City and an adjunct professor at the University of Maine.