It is easy to see that it will be difficult to find one 
program that meets all the tests and scores a 10. 
The Federal Role 
If the United States is truly moving rapidly to a 
service economy (fast food, automatic bank tellers, 
and biotechnology), then there is a strong argument 
that the government has a strategic role to play in 
the timber supply situation. 
The days of the big trade surpluses in the Unit- 
ed States are gone, and we not only have lower cost 
oil and gas and lower inflation but we also have 
growing agricultural surpluses. There are free world 
countries--Japan, Korea, Brazil, and even China-- 
that are intensely competitive in the world markets 
and are gaining on the United States. These coun- 
tries work as partners with their industries rather 
than as adversaries. Imagine what kind of timber 
management program Japan would have if it en- 
joyed the same southern timber situation as the 
United States. 
Industry analysts will quickly point out that the 
pulp and paper industry has nearly all the same 
attributes of steel, autos, and other "smoke-stack" 
industries that we have lost to foreign countries. 
These include heavy capital investments, overpaid 
labor forces, high no-return environmental costs, 
and low flexibility. 
Now add to this the one predicted change in the 
overall forest resources picture for the first time in 
the past 100 years: a real rate of price increase for 
pulpwood. 
The only real difference that | see in the pulp 
and paper industry and those industries we have 
lost is that a major part of the total cost of the fin- 
ished product is a renewable resource--wood! 
Keeping this resource inexpensive, high quality, 
and readily available has to be considered a 
beneficial strategic goal for the United States. | also 
believe that we will reach a point of diminishing 
returns on reforestation before such a goal is totally 
reached. Therefore, | believe that we will need a 
breakthrough, for example, a new kind of tree to 
grow. This could be an appropriate long-term goal 
for the government. 
Opportunities for Incremental Gains 
by Other Owners 
Government 
Whether you use a back-of-the-envelope calcu- 
lation or the most sophisticated model, you will 
quickly see that forest industry lands alone cannot 
grow enough fiber to meet consumption needs. 
Other landowners have to be part of the picture. In 
the Northwest, it is the USDA Forest Service. The 
per-acre potential there, and in the South on our 
own government timberland, is as great as for the 
nonindustrial private landowners. We need better 
policies for the management of Forest Service 
lands. 
A change in Forest Service policies would be by 
far the least expensive and the most cost-efficient 
way to change productivity of any of the alternatives 
we could discuss. The Forest Service is not only by 
far the single largest owner of timber in the United 
States; it has the expertise in place to act quickly if 
directed. 
The largest stake-holder is still the nonindustrial 
private landowner. What can industry do to improve 
the productivity of lands in private hands? We are 
already doing a lot of things in this regard: support 
of associations such as the American Forest Coun- 
cil and State forestry associations, sharing our tech- 
nology, and, of course, landowner assistance pro- 
grams (LAP's). 
Industrial Landowner Assistance Programs 
Looking at the different landowner assistance 
programs available from industry, we see that they 
too are "normally" distributed. There are programs 
that are extremely well managed and others that 
have been on-again and off-again. From a govern- 
ment point of view relative to other "assistance" pro- 
grams, industry landowner assistance programs 
have the potential of being highly cost effective and 
offer private landowners some real advantages. For 
example: 
o Since the companies and owners know about 
harvests in advance, the industrial landowner- 
assistance forester has time to talk to the 
landowner about reforestation before low-cost 
alternatives are lost. This is a critical advantage 
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