Op-Ed: Louisiana’s timber industry needs a new path

(The Center Square) – From the Arkansas line, in all directions down through much of Louisiana, dipping even into Cajun country, you see trees. Everywhere. The depth and breadth of our pine and hardwood stands and forests are almost indiscernible. Since serious management became a thing in the 1940s and reforestation took hold, professionals have managed these lands for timber, wildlife, fire prevention, and the Divinely created cycle of carbon working through these trees to produce the very oxygen we breathe.

For as long as most can remember, this industry was the heartbeat of rural Louisiana and stood as the backbone of our economy in Louisiana, producing lumber, paper, and dozens of other wood products that generated living wages and pockets of prosperity through nearly every parish.

Forty years ago the sector already carried real weight. Twenty years ago its impact remained substantial: in 1998 alone the timber industry generated about $5.4 billion in total value that flowed through logging crews, mills, trucking firms, and...