1942: Forestry

Effects of War.

In the year 1942, American forests entered the war. In anticipation of defense requirements, it was estimated that the nation would need approximately 38,000,000,000 board feet of lumber as compared with 35,000,000,000 board feet in 1941. In the course of expanding production and military operations, however, this estimate was increased as the year progressed to considerably more than 40,000,000,000 board feet. Figures are not yet available that show whether these estimates were realized in actual production or whether they were exceeded. Like every other industry, lumbering suffered from priorities, shortages of equipment and replacements, shortage of shipping facilities, and ultimately a shortage of manpower as selective service withdrew its younger men for service with the armed forces, and as competing industries in lumbering areas enticed workers into more remunerative jobs. There is every indication, however, that the industry met most, if not all, of the increasing demands made upon it, producing despite deficiencies in every vital need from men to ships.

The military needs of the nation quickly took priority over civilian needs, and by the end of the year these war demands exceeded the capacities of certain of the lumbering districts to produce. Before the year closed, however, programs of stabilization, covering prices, wages and manpower, promised to provide a solution for the manifold problems which lumbermen were facing in a time of war and in a war of production.

Conservation of Forests.

Conservation of forests became entirely a secondary consideration, as it logically should in such a crisis. Yet, even under the pressure of the defense program that was under way in 1941, one of the more important steps toward conservation was initiated by the International Woodworkers of America, affiliated with the Congress of Industrial Organizations. Representing a substantial number of the organized workers engaged in lumbering and sawmill operations, this group forwarded to Congress a series of recommendations and resolutions which, if shelved for the duration of the emergency, will undoubtedly come up again in the period of rehabilitation which must follow quickly on the heels of war. In reporting their views to Congress, the Woodworkers presented some thought-provoking data:

'Let no one believe that forest conservation will not be necessary for many years to come.... Of our 462,000,000 acres of commercial forest lands about 73,000,000 acres — an area almost as large as all of Virginia, North Carolina, and South Carolina — is now producing so little that it is practically worthless. About 174,000,000 acres — more than Kansas, Oklahoma, Missouri and Arkansas — are, with few exceptions, alarmingly understocked, with many diseased and defective trees. Only about 215,000,000 acres now bear trees of saw timber size. This area includes our fast-diminishing virgin forests. It makes up about one third of all our forest land.

'Current growth of saw timber is calculated by the Federal Forest Survey at 363,000,000 board feet. Annual saw timber drain totals more than 2,000,000,000 board feet....

'Almost the entire Middle West or Lakes states bear mute testimony of the terrific cost of past and present methods practised by the majority of the timber land owners. The Lakes states in 1895 produced 35 per cent of the native lumber. Today these same states produce about 4 per cent.

'From the Middle West it was possible to move to the Far West.... Large cities have sprung up throughout the entire Northwest dependent on the continuation of the lumbering industry. But the industry has been built as it was in the Middle West, on the basis of short term rather than permanent stability ... the staff of the Regional Planning Commission of the Northwest was able to compile a list of 76 towns devoted to wood products that had completely disappeared, and a second list of 77 towns whose population had heavily declined because of the abandonment of lumber mills....

'Forests are part and parcel of national security.

'Depletion is no mere fantasy.'

The organized workers in the industry have obviously taken a serious long-range view of the forest problem, and there is no question but their attitude will have more weight and influence than all the conservationists who have no more than an academic interest in the matter. To these 290,000 men conservation is the assurance of livelihood; to Government officials it may be a source of tax revenues. But fundamentally, to the nation as a whole, the forests are not only 'part and parcel of national security,' but also an integral part of our national economy. Security is the pass word now, and the forests and lumbermen are playing an indispensable role. After the war, the problems of our national economy will be paramount, and a sane and healthy forest economy will unquestionably be one of the early objectives of Government men and labor. It is to be hoped that the owners of forest lands will play an equally important part in sound forest management.

Fire Prevention.

The vital role which forest products play in war make the care of woodlands and the prevention of fires a more critical activity now than ever before. As the year closed some 42 state foresters were pressing hard for an amendment to the Clarke-McNary Act of 1924 to enable Congress to appropriate up to $9,000,000 annually for cooperative forest protection, instead of the statutory $2,500,000. In some sections of the country Civilian Defense has proved an unexpected boon to conservation and fire control by creating a force of wardens who watch for sabotage and for accidentally set fires, and by increasing the fire-fighting equipment available for use in the forests.

Development of Processing Industries.

Although the war has brought an accelerated rate of depletion to the forests of America, our woodlands stand to benefit from the war in the long run. The stoppage of exports, the development of processing industries which were formerly carried on in foreign mills utilizing American lumber, additional protection, and a growing concern in governmental, industrial and labor circles about the wise management of this important natural resource are war developments which will undoubtedly extend into the postwar period. Perhaps the day is not far distant when the conservationist will no longer be a lone voice crying in a figurative wilderness.