Major Challenges in the Pacific West

• Globalization of forest products supply:
• The importation of low cost logs and forest products from sources with fewer or no restrictions on forest operations.
• Offshore flight of mills to countries with lower conversion costs and fewer restrictions on supply.
  
• Consolidation of mills into fewer ownerships at fewer locations.
• Conversion of late successional forests to second growth forests with greater per stem handling costs and greater susceptibility to damage from wildfire.
• Increases in fuel, equipment, insurance, and other logging costs
• Domination of forest workforce by undocumented and migrant workers who are politically, socially, and economically vulnerable.
• Inadequate funding and single year funding of public agency forestry programs.
• Lack of trust by the public of forest managers, leading to project appeals and delays, especially of projects on public lands.
• A regulatory and litigation climate, particularly in California, that substantially increases forest management costs and hampers landowners’ abilities to justify stand improvements and harvests, or to respond to favorable log markets.