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TEXAS PINES BEING CUT FASTER THAN GROWTH RATE
Writer: Katy Hall (409) 862-3309
Contact: Roger Lord (979) 845-2641
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COLLEGE STATION -- The entire state may some day pine for the woods of East Texas, say officials with the Texas Forest Service.
Texas pine trees are being cut down faster than they can grow, says Roger Lord, a staff forester with the Forest Resource Development Department of the state forest service in College Station.
In 1993, the number of pine being harvested by the wood-based industry rose 3 percent over the year before - an upward trend seen in 15 of the last 19 years. The same figures show that pines were being plucked from the forest at a rate of 9 percent above estimated growth, he says.
Statistics for the 1994 harvest are not yet available, but Lord expects those numbers to be up over 1993, possibly by 2 percent to 5 percent. He says rising timber prices and a growing national demand for Texas timber are behind the increasing harvests.
"It's a problem," says Lord, "but on the horizon there are some good things that make it less worrisome."
Lord says some members of the wood-based industry are planting pine plantations that should help the situation - provided the trees come on line like industry expects.
"They (wood-based industry) own about 3.4 million acres and most of that will be planted by the year 2000," he says.
Industry has been in the process of planting this land since the late 1960s - replanting after harvest, Lord says.
In the meantime, the state forest service is using cost-share programs, one-on-one advice and millions of tiny seedlings in its ongoing efforts to restore the state's depleting timber resources.
But as timber prices climb to record highs, more and more landowners are selling the trees from their property.
Prices have more than doubled over the past four years rising from $163 per thousand board feet in 1990 to an average $380 per thousand board feet last year. In today's market a landowner can get about $50 for an average 16-inch diameter pine tree, Lord says.
As a result, timber harvests continue to set records.
In 1993, a total 778.8 million cubic feet of timber (pine and hardwoods combined) was cut from Texas forests. That's enough timber to build more than 480,000 average 1,800-square-foot homes, he says.
Pine trees represented 591.8 million cubic feet, up 4 percent over the previous year, while hardwoods such as oaks made up the remaining 187 million cubic feet, reports the state forest service.
Although the hardwood harvest jumped by 7 percent, it is not seen as a threat because there are still more trees being grown than cut down. However, there has been a steady increase in hardwood harvests since 1990, Lord says.
Why the increasing demand on Texas timber? Primarily because of recommendations by the federal government starting in the mid- 1980s to reduce harvests on federal lands in the Pacific Northwest. In 1993, the Clinton Plan recommended further reductions that took a estimated 4 billion board feet off the market, he says.
"When they took that timber off the market, demand didn't go away," Lord says. "Somebody's going to come in and try to satisfy that demand."
So industry looked to the only area able to increase timber production - the South, including Texas with its 150 timber mills, he says.
The question arises: Can Texas forests survive in this larger market?
"It's a `what if' situation," Lord says. "If they (non- industrial land owners) planted the trees on the land that was out there (such as marginal pasture land), we could support a significant increase in the industry size.
"But if we continue (harvesting but not replanting) the way were are now, it's going to be difficult," he says. "Even with the pine plantations on industry land it's going to be tough."
Industry will find it tough to meet demand without compromising its resource.
So the state forest service, which is charged with the conservation of this natural resource, turns to the non-industrial private landowners who own millions of acres of prime timber producing property.
The latest figures show 7.2 million acres of private property in 43 East Texas counties that is currently in forest. However, about 1.8 million acres of that is producing timber but not near its potential, Lord says.
Then there is another 2 million acres of marginal pasture/crop land that could be used for timber production, he says.
The state forest service offers a variety of services to help landowners to reforest their property: help with the development of forest management plans, implementation of reforestation and timber stand improvement activities, prescribed burning, insect and disease control.
At the root of these efforts are millions of seedlings grown annually at the state forest service's Indian Mound Nursery on Texas 21 near Alto. This year the nursery is harvesting nearly 18 million seedlings, mostly pine, says Tony Simms, manager of nursery operations.
Most of the seedlings are sold to private landowners who want to invest in a timber "crop" that will be ready for harvest in 30 or 40 years.
To encourage them to take advantage of all its services, the state forest service also offers several cost-share programs including the Forestry Incentives Program (FIP), Texas Reforestation Foundation (TRe) and the Stewardship Incentives Program, which help landowners with reforestation and timber stand improvement costs. SIP provides financial assistance for wildlife, water quality, recreational and timber management practices.
Figures for 1993 show that non-industrial private landowners received more than $1 million in cost-share assistance for reforestation and timber stand improvement practices through federal and industry cost-share programs. Such funding helped plant trees on a total of 31,892 acres - the highest level since the 1950s and early 60s, reports the Texas Forest Service.
The problem remains that non-industrial private landowners are only replanting one acre for every nine harvested - a fact the Texas Forest Service hopes higher timber prices along with its incentive programs and millions of little seedlings can change.
"If everybody was replanting like we (Texans, in general) should be," Simms says, "it would be enough."
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