07/09/2008

Associated Press

The nationwide housing slump led to a sharp reduction in the number of trees cut in Oregon last year.

The statewide timber harvest dropped to 3.8 billion board feet in 2007, a 12 percent decline from the year before and the smallest harvest since 2001, the state Department of Forestry reported this week.

It would have been worse, but commercial construction, large transportation projects and the weak dollar helped offset the slow residential market. The harvest declined less than half of the percentage drop in national housing starts, said Gary Lettman, a Department of Forestry economist.

Lane County, despite a 15 percent decline from 2006, continued to lead Oregon's timber production, with 504 million board feet. It was followed by Douglas, Clatsop and Coos counties, which all topped 300 million.

While harvest on private lands was headed downward, harvest on federal forests was up slightly, increasing by 7.8 percent on Bureau of Land Management lands and 3.3 percent on U.S. Forest Service lands.

Among the economic trends that kept 2007 from being worse was the weakening dollar, which made U.S.-grown wood cheaper, said Bill Conerly, an economics consultant in Lake Oswego.

Conerly, however, notes that 2008 looks like a gloomy year for logging, with further declines in housing and nonresidential construction and less industrial production and fewer infrastructure projects.

"The only thing propping it up is the foreign markets, so I think 2008 is going to be pretty lousy in the wood patch," he said.

The reduced harvest meant fewer forestry jobs, said regional labor economist Brian Rooney, but the small outfits are the ones that faltered.

In 2006, 1,034 companies employed 11,423 people, but last year 933 companies employed 11,076 workers, a loss of 101 employers but just 307 jobs, Rooney said.

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Information from: The Register-Guard, http://www.registerguard.com