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Betsy Bates

Mixed And Worrisome Indicators Impact Timber Markets

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The prices landowners received for trees in the second quarter of 2016 were flat-to-down, depending on the product and the region, reports the head of one of the nation’s largest forest management firms.

Marshall Thomas, president of F&W Forestry Services which operates across the major forested regions of the U.S., reports in his firm’s summer newsletter that there are mixed and worrisome indicators that are impacting timber markets.

“We were forecasted to be in a full housing recovery by now,” Thomas writes in the latest edition of The F&W Forestry Report. “It’s clear that landowners aren’t feeling a recovery, either in their attitudes or their pocket books.”

“All in all, this wasn’t a great quarter to report on, but long term forecasts still support a recovery—we just have to be patient,”

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SUMMER 2016 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW»

Betsy Bates

Green Building Rating System Opens Door To Other Wood Certification Standards

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The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), the governing body for the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system, has instituted a new program that will allow for green credits to be given for wood products certified under forest certification standards other than the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC).

Until now the LEED rating system only awarded credit to wood and wood products certified under the FSC standard. This preferential treatment has had the effect of excluding locally grown wood products in LEED approved projects while favoring wood products from FSC-certified forests, much of it imported from other regions and abroad.

Forestry groups have been working for years to have the USGBC recognize additional forest certification systems, including the American Tree Farm System (ATFS), the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), and the Progamme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC) in addition to FSC.

The new Alternative Compliance Path (ACP) credit is “designed to further advance environmentally responsible forest management and help rid our buildings of illegal wood by promoting the use of wood that is verified to be legal,” according to USGBC.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SUMMER 2016 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW»

Betsy Bates

Chinese Company To Build New Pulp Mill In U.S.

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A new full-scale pulp and paper mill is coming to the U.S. South—the first one in more than 30 years.

Paper manufacturer Shandong Sun Paper Industry of China said it will build a new pulp mill that will cost between $1 billion and $1.3 billion in south Arkansas at Arkadelphia.

South Arkansas is known for its abundant timberlands and the new mill is expected to have an annual economic impact of up to $100 million on the forest industry in that region. Construction of the mill is expected to begin in the first half of 2017 with production tentatively set for late 2019.  The mill will be Sun Paper’s first plant in North America.

The last “greenfield” pulp and paper mill to be built in the Southern U.S. was in 1985 at Eastover, S.C., by Union Camp Corporation at a cost of around $600 million. International Paper, which purchased Union Camp in 1999, continues to operate the pulp mill and two paper machines at the Eastover facility.

TO SEE THE FULL ARTICLE IN THE SUMMER 2016 F&W FORESTRY REPORT, SUBSCRIBE NOW»