While proponents of federal-land transfer often claim state management would increase resource extraction and jobs, the Montana timber industry doesn’t agree. On Friday, the Montana Wood Products Association board of directors issued a policy statement opposing efforts to transfer federal lands to the state.

“It really is prompted by all the bills coming through the state Legislature this year. We’ve had conversations with the people who are promoting that agenda and tried to explain why it’s not helpful for forest products and forestry in general,” said MWPA executive director Julia Altemus.

Some legislators, including Sen. Jennifer Fielder, R-Thompson Falls, and Rep. Theresa Manzella, R-Hamilton, have drafted several bills to increase the state’s influence over federal lands to varying degrees. Fielder has often said state control would improve the forest health and increase jobs around her town.

In Montana, some public discontent about federal land management stems from the loss of logging opportunity in national forests over the past three to four decades. Throughout the West, the timber harvest has dropped 80 percent over the past 20 years, according to the MWPA. In Montana, the 2013 harvest was just 30 percent of the 1.6 billion board-feet processed in 1986. But the MWPA members say transferring federal land to the state is not the way to reverse that trend. They suggested it might even make matters worse.

Their statement said attempts to transfer federal land “could act as a distraction to the national efforts and not provide the timely progress needed. Such an action would not only catapult the timber industry back into the ‘timber wars’ of past decades, but it also does not address or resolve the root of the problems we are currently facing with litigation and over-regulatory policies.”

From the Bozeman Daily Chronicle: https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/environment/montana-timber-group-opposes-federal-land-transfer/article_70a429a9-0de2-564a-b488-3d1704b923c9.html