Our current policy is based on the assumption that what is good for the companies in the forest products industry is, by extension, good for our forests and workers. It is accepted that they are the experts and can best determine how to manage our forests. It is tacitly accepted that protecting our forests from industrial excess will necessarily result in job losses. Yet, given the decline of jobs in the forest products industry over the last fifteen years, one could reasonably conclude that current policies are doing an adequate job of destroying jobs in the industry. Individuals within the establishment move from industry to public sector positions and back with occasional stops in academia in a game of musical chairs which results in academic and public policies framed from a resource extractive rather than ecological perspective.
Maine has the highest concentration of industrial forestland in our nation.
Nearly one half of our state is in industrial ownership, the average tenure of ownership being less than ten years. It is entirely appropriate that we place a burden of accountability on the major landowners which is greater than that of the small landowner. By using their wealth and the threat of job losses to dominate the public policy making process they have not only effectively avoided this accountability, but have institutionalized their presence to maintain this subordination of the public's legitimate interests. With this model of policy development, we are, at best, managing the rate of decline of jobs in the forest products industry. The idea that they are representatives of, and should be protecting the greater interests of the people of Maine seems to have been lost.