Future national need for wood 



This subject has aroused and will continue to provoke considerable argument because 

 future needs for wood cannot be measured. Estimates of long-range national demands for 

 timber have been made periodically during the past several decades. All indicate a rising 

 demand for wood. However, no estimates have been projected beyond the year 2000, and 

 it is anyone's guess how great the need for timber products will be 100 years and more 

 hence. 



Since facts about this distant future are obviously not obtainable, present public pol- 

 icy cannot be based on what will happen, but must instead be related to the possibility of 

 need. Policy decisions related to such long-range planning become more realistic if they 

 are viewed as steps in meeting uncertainties. 



In developing public timber policy the following line of reasoning seems reaUstic inso- 

 far as future national demands for wood are concerned: The population of the United States 

 is definitely headed upward, and nothing short of catastrophe will change that. A median 

 estimate of the Nation's population in the year 2000 is 325 million people. There is no 

 present indication that the number of people in the United States will not rise above that 

 level in later years. 



Although a progressively higher proportion of the total national effort will go into 

 services, the need for raw materials will undoubtedly continue to mount along with popu- 

 lation, if living standards are to be maintained and improved. Timber needs in the United 

 States to the year 2000 are discussed in a recent report.^ Wood is only one essential raw 

 material, and the future demand for wood therefore will depend partly on the availability 

 of the other materials. 



Availability itself is a complex consideration dependent upon physical supply, techno- 

 logical progress, and restrictions imposed by national boundaries. No long-range analysis 

 has yet pieced together a reliable picture of total resource availability a century hence and 

 the resultant likely need for wood. However, there is a possibility that other raw materials 

 may become economically less available in the next century, a factor that might substan- 

 tially increase needs for wood above the level that can now be anticipated. Much of the 

 case for timber growing on the North Slope and areas like it rests on this possibility. 



There is the further problem of priorities between regions and areas. This may not be 

 a one-sided matter. Two main liabilities of this region are a large area of low site land and 

 long distance to principal markets. These liabihties may be more than offset by an im- 

 portant advantage — a high proportion of public ownership. To increase the quality and 

 quantity of timber yields substantially in any region will require considerable acceleration 

 of forestry. Whether it is possible to achieve and maintain a high level of forestry on mil- 

 lions of small private holdings which predominate in the East remains to be seen. This is 

 feasible on public lands. 



Local need for income 



A perennial issue in parts of the Mountain States is the problem of providing eco- 

 nomic opportunity. As in other parts of the Nation, economic growth has been more rap- 

 id in metropolitan areas than in rural areas and in small communities where the economy 



3U. S. Forest Service. Timber trends in the United States. U. S. Dep. Agr. Forest Resource Rep. 

 17, 235 pp.. illus. 1965. 



17 



