All of these facets support the vitality of lake states communities. This program will be reviewed in regional meetings this fall. Seventh American Forest Congress Michigan forests are well managed and professional resource managers on public and private lands continue to develop improvements. We are growing over 10 million cords of wood annually and using about the same amount, but we are harvesting less than 5 million cords from Michigan forests per year. Therefore, we should strive to do an even better job and become more self-sufficient.
Predictability is essential to forestry businesses and everyone dependent on the forest economy.
We must improve the integrity of our forest planning processes to enhance the predictability of timber supply from public forests. Millions of dollars have been spent on the management plans for National Forests. In Michigan, a consensus was reached and settlement agreements were signed for the Huron-Manistee management plans. It is troubling to those of us who signed these agreements that these plans are not being implemented as envisioned by everyone that worked on them. This violates the settlement agreement that aspen stands would not be converted to other species in this planning period.