Forest Industry Leaders Plan Review of Options to Strengthen Timber Hauling

U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities, Greenville, SCFor IMMEDIATE RELEASE (NOVEMBER 13, 2015)

The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (Endowment) today released a report–Enhancing theStrength and Vitality of the Nation’s Timber Harvesting/Hauling Network –from a late summer convening of sector leaders that explored opportunities to strengthen the nation’s timber harvesting and haulinglink in the forest products value chain. The report contains a commitment by participants to explore and test 21st century solutions to what the group considers the most significant bottleneck in the system –hauling or trucking wood from timber harvesting sites to manufacturing facilities.

“As the economy has rebounded from the Great Recession, it appears that every segment of the business community faces a common challenge – finding and training qualified truck drivers to get their rawmaterials and products to market,” said Endowment President & CEO Carlton Owen. “This bottleneck isperhaps even more acute in the forest sector than it is in others markets.”

Leaders from forest products companies, major forest landowners, and state and federal natural resources agencies who participated in the meeting agreed that specific actions are urgently needed to strengthen the timber harvesting/hauling link. Failure to do so might cause supply chain disruptions that could forestall economic recovery.

Meeting participants representing a wide-range of key companies in the tree-growing and forest products manufacturing segments of the industry agreed to work with the Endowment to consider solutions to the trucking bottleneck. Collaboration is important as the issue appears to be systemic rather than one that can be effectively addressed by individual entities. The group plans to launch a pilot in a sub-region of the Southern U.S. in 2016.

For more information contact:
Carlton N. Owen, President & CEO, 864-233-7646, carlton@usendowment.org
The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities (the Endowment) is a not-for-profit public charity working collaboratively with partners in the public and private sectors to advance systemic, transformative, and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation’s working forests andforest-reliant communities – www.usendowment.org