The Columbia River system once boasted yearly migrations of 20 million salmon. The numbers are now down to less than two million. Sixty thousand jobs in the commercial fishing industry have been impacted. Publicly-subsidized federal timber sales suppress domestic wood prices and compete directly against the private sector causing today's wood prices to be lower than they were in 1970 dollars. Ending logging on public lands will increase the value of private timberlands.
Mills gross more but cut less timber as restrictions push ahead log values.
This means that private owners could have an incentive to cut less but make more money liquidating less of their inventory. The opportunity to realize higher returns may also provide an incentive for sound ecological management of private timberlands. The public land agencies have demonstrated an inability or unwillingness to obey environmental laws. The agencies' willingness to ignore, and indeed encourage and cover-up, timber theft is legendary and has been widely reported. THE TIME HAS COME Even the timber industry is starting to accept that the public lands logging program is a dead horse.