In New Era, Timber’s Struggles Stir Broad Concern and Support
By KIRK JOHNSON, NY TIMES

A scramble is under way here in Montana to save the historically important, culturally resonant timber industry — once a pillar of the state’s identity, now under siege as demand for housing and wood products has plummeted in the national economic downturn.
But what makes this debate different from those about saving automobile makers or banks and whoever else is in line for a bailout are the multiple layers of connection to things that might seem to have nothing to do with two-by-fours, plywood or even jobs.

Climate change, for example — how to manage state and federal forest lands as new diseases and insects threaten them in a warmer future — and the soaring costs of fighting wildfires in the West have both become part of the discussion. If the state loses its base of roughly 200 interconnected sawmills, pulp buyers and family-owned tree-cutting contractors, advocates say, who will be left to work in the woods to make them usable, beautiful and safe, and at what cost?

“Our fear is that we could lose our infrastructure — the base of knowledge and experience of working in the forest,” said Mary Sexton, the director of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. “Once it’s gone, it’s gone.”

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