The study also makes clear that proliferation of woodchip mills has only made matters worse by increasing harvest volumes and harvested acres in counties where timber removals already exceed new growth. The reality of what's happening to our forests is not news. The governor's woodchip study, along with a forest sustainability study conducted for him in 1996, confirm what forest ecologists and other experts have feared for some time. What's most troubling is that North Carolina can't see the forests for the trees. The state has neither plans nor visions for reversing disturbing trends and putting forests back on a sustainable path.
Sustainable forests are critical too for a robust and profitable forest-products industry.
But so far industry leaders have turned a blind eye to the forest crisis, instead pointing the finger at urban sprawl as the main threat to future forests. All agree that sprawl is a problem, and timber companies and their sizable real estate subsidiaries would do well to join conservationists and others in doing something about it. But foresthealth depends upon sustainable timber practices too. Unless foresters actively begin to manage lands not only for their valuable timber but for wildlife, water quality and other non-timber values as well, many of these values will be irreversibly lost. A broad coalition of business, conservation and community groups are calling for a temporary moratorium on new chip mills to relieve some of the pressure on North Carolina's forests and give the next governor and legislature time to generate solutions to unsustainable forests.