Introduction
Good morning. It’s a pleasure to address this distinguished audience of forestry experts. As you learned from my introduction, I’m an accountant by training, not a forester.
However, I work with foresters every day, and I value their expertise. And I know I’m surrounded by some of the best here at Mississippi State University, home of one of the south’s premier forestry schools. If I ever doubt this fact, I will be set straight quickly by Ben Jones, our Timberlands Manager for Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee. Ben lives here in Starkville, and is a long-time bulldog, with bachelor and master degrees from Mississippi State University.
Beyond the many Mississippi State graduates who work with Weyerhaeuser, the company has for many years valued the expertise of Mississippi State’s College of Forest Resources. The company’s partnerships with MSU include:
- Wild turkey ecology research which begins this fall.
- A nine-year research project on prescribed burning and herbicides and their effect on wildlife in mid-rotation stands research.
Other projects include one on red bat ecology in intensely managed forests, a three-year project that was just completed. This project involved Weyerhaeuser’s Southern Wildlife Project Manager Darren Miller, Ph.D., who is also an adjunct assistant professor in MSU’s Wildlife and fisheries department. Our partnership extends to our making Weyerhaeuser land available for field studies for your forestry students and assisting with graduate student research. I am pleased to be here today to continue the partnership.
Weyerhaeuser in Missippi
It’s also a pleasure for me to be here in the great state of Mississippi, where Weyerhaeuser Company manages almost three-quarters of a million acres of forestland and employs more than 1,800 people at a dozen plants and other operations.
In nearby Columbus, Weyerhaeuser produces coated groundwood paper, which is used in magazines, catalogs and commercial printing, and pulp, which is sold to other papermakers and is used by our Columbus Modified Fiber operation to create an innovative cross-linked fiber.
This unique cross-linked fiber is manufactured at Columbus and then sold to companies for the production of absorbent products, including diapers.
In Mississippi, we also produce lumber, corrugated shipping containers and other packaging. And, of course, we grow trees in Mississippi, planting an average of 11 million seedlings a year. Weyerhaeuser has operated in Mississippi since 1956, or almost half our 103-year-old company’s lifetime. Here is a listing of our Mississippi operations.
Today, Weyerhaeuser Company is one of the world’s largest forest products companies, with 57,000 employees, more than 400 operations in 18 countries and owning or holding the harvest rights to more than 41 million acres of forests worldwide. That’s an area almost one and one-half times the size of Mississippi.
With the acquisition of Willamette Industries in February of 2002, Weyerhaeuser grew in the south and the northwest. Weyerhaeuser is the world’s largest owner of merchantable softwood timber, the world’s largest producer of softwood and hardwood lumber, the world’s largest producer of softwood market pulp, the world’s largest producer of engineered lumber products, North America’s 2nd-largest producer of structural panels, North America’s 2nd-largest distributor of wood products, the world’s 2nd-largest producer of uncoated freesheet paper and the world’s 2nd-largest producer of containerboard and kraft paper.
The Global perspective
One subject I was asked to cover with you today is how global forces affect our industry. I will list some ways.
- We compete in a global economy and right now, we’re losing competitiveness to other countries. Reasons include a declining U.S. manufacturing base and higher costs than our overseas competitors.
- Forestry expansion in the Southern Hemisphere, with high timber-growth rates and low manufacturing costs, ups the ante for North American-based companies like ours. This is a global opportunity which Weyerhaeuser is pursuing to a growing degree, but, of course, it’s a real challenge to commercial forests in North America.
- We also face greater environmental and other regulatory constraints than producers in many other nations.
- Also, countries that once imported American wood and paper products are now either sourcing them from other countries or developing their own capabilities; examples are the giant paper machines which have started up recently in China and Germany.
- World population is growing, and global demand for wood and paper products continues to rise with population growth. Consumption of wood is predicted to rise by almost 40 percent over the next 50 years.
- Oversupply of some timber and forest products has resulted in real price reductions. Currently, capacity of wood products in North America is outpacing demand by 7 to 8 billion board feet annually. Our industry has experienced market downtime in many product lines and reduced income from timber sales, for landowners both small and large, like Weyerhaeuser.
Landowner responsibilities, advantages
Given all these factors, why, then, has Weyerhaeuser chosen to be a major landowner, when other companies have chosen to divest their land ownership?
As I mentioned, Weyerhaeuser is the largest private owner of merchantable softwood timber in the world and owns or has the harvest rights to 41 million acres of forests worldwide. The company purchased its first forestland in 1900, the year it was founded, and established America’s first tree farm in 1941.
Weyerhaeuser views forest ownership as an investment and as a way to have a reliable source of raw materials. We remain a land-owning company because we desire the “value-added” benefits of integrating from the customer back to the forest. We do not want to rely on other growers for 100 percent of our timber supply. Even so, our mills are not self-sufficient, and in the U.S., we buy roughly two-thirds of our raw materials from other sources, and in the south, about 75 percent.
From its beginnings, Weyerhaeuser has been a land-owning, tree-growing company, and we intend to stay that way. But with forest ownership comes a great responsibility. That means managing our forests in a way that increases yield while protecting water and soil quality as well as wildlife habitat. I believe that it’s only through the use of managed forests that the world’s (and Mississippi’s) most ecologically-significant natural forests will be preserved.
For instance, Weyerhaeuser VOLUNTARILY protects 200,000 acres along streams within the five million acres owned and managed in the southeast. Almost half a million acres of Weyerhaeuser ownership in the southeast are in protected areas both mandatory and voluntary. This is more than 10 percent of Weyerhaeuser’s ownership in the Southeast and is an area three-fourths the size of Rhode Island.
Sustainability: our license to operate
As Weyerhaeuser announced nationwide in mid-February, our company is now certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative™, or SFI, standard on all 7.4 million acres of timberland in the United States. The certification by the Quality Management Institute includes all of our 650,000 acres in Mississippi and offers independent verification that our forests are being managed to a high standard.
Let me show you some local examples of how SFI -- and, for the non-industrial landowner, the Tree Farm Program -- truly protect our most important ecological areas.
- The gopher tortoise in Mississippi is one of the rare species which Weyerhaeuser takes special measures to protect. Like the red hills salamander in Alabama, the northern spotted owl in Oregon and Washington, and the American burying beetle in Arkansas and Oklahoma, the gopher tortoise is protected with a habitat conservation plan.
- Other protected animals in the South include the American black bear, the red-cockaded woodpecker, the bald eagle, the Southern hognose snake. Protected plants include the Louisiana quillwort and Price’s potato bean. Also, the bayou darter fish is protected on our company lands in south Mississippi.
- Special sites can have geological, biological or cultural values, which are protected under SFI.
In Mississippi, these special, protected sites include:
- The Old Cove area in Webster County, which we manage to preserve rare plants and insects
- The Red Bluff scenic area near Columbia is another special, protected site. It is an area of geological concern overlooking the Pearl River.
- In addition, in partnership with state agencies, we protect several natural heritage sites, bog areas and species of concern.
- And, Weyerhaeuser’s scenic river plans protect such watercourses as Wolf River and Magee’s Creek, as well as Black Creek, the only federally-protected river in Mississippi.
Where are we now?
The protection of these sites by Weyerhaeuser and others illustrates a couple of truths about the state of forestry today. As a backdrop, keep in mind that the non-industrial landowner owns three-fourth of the land in the South. In Mississippi, the non-industrial landowner owns 69 percent of forest land; the forest industry owns 20 percent, and the government 11 percent.
The first truth about forestry today is that, as a region, the South is producing more timber than ever while maintaining a stable forest land base. Sustainable timber production makes possible a regional forest products industry that employs 770,000 people in family-wage jobs and while protecting water quality, endangered species and special places. The South produces 39 percent of the nation’s forest products jobs and 5.5 percent of all Southern jobs. The South produces 58 percent of U.S. wood production and almost 16 percent of the world’s wood production. The South’s $118 billion in total output from forest products is 7.5 percent of total southern industry output.
According to the recent Southern Forestry Resource Assessment, the Southern land base and timber supply remain relatively stable. Statistics from this study confirm our premise that the Southern forest is healthy, growing and sustainable. For instance:
- 60 percent of the South is forested, stable since the 1970s at 214 million acres, thanks to strong markets, which provided the incentive to plant.
- Current forest area equals 91 percent of that existing in 1907.
- Projected loss to development of 12 million acres by 2020 will be offset by gains from farms of 10 million acres.
- Losses of forest acreage are expected along the coast, and gains are expected in Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Southern forests are and will continue to be hardwood dominated. Hardwood inventories will increase through 2025, then decline slightly through 2040. Levels then will still be greater than current levels. Total acres in planted pine will increase to 50 million acres by 2040, which is 25 percent of forests, compared to 15 percent today. Growth will exceed harvest of softwoods.
My second point regarding the future of the new world of forestry is that managed forests are not the cause of, but the answer to, many environmental concerns.
The concerns expressed by some about the condition and future of the nation’s managed forests are, I believe, exaggerated, if not unfounded, in some cases.
For those of us in the forest products industry, our economic well-being – our jobs and livelihoods – depend on keeping the land forested. Moreover, some of the most innovative and sustainable forestry anywhere is being practiced on private, non-industrial and industrial forestlands.
This graph illustrates growth rates for natural and intensively managed forests. Depending on the region, intensively managed forests can grow from three to ten times the volume of wood per acre per year as an unmanaged forest.
Some experts have estimated that less than 5 percent of the world’s forests would be required to meet present wood demand if all the timber came from high-yield, managed forests – versus anywhere from 20 to 40 percent from unmanaged, naturally regenerating forests.
Privately owned, managed forests offer the ability to provide needed products to a growing world population in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way. Both the world and the United States need managed forests, and it makes sense to locate a good share of them where tree-growing is the best, to reduce the overall footprint.
Need I mention that Mississippi is a prime tree-growing region? And, now we can grow trees faster and healthier than Mother Nature?
I realize I’m talking to a group of people who believe that the science will continue to improve. Together, we will continue to learn more so that we can do an even better job of meeting the world’s needs for wood and paper products, while protecting water, soil and wildlife.
Another aspect of growing wood intensively is the challenge of using faster-grown wood in forest products. Like your scientists here at Mississippi State, Weyerhaeuser is developing new forest products and studying ways to best utilize this faster growing wood.
Weyerhaeuser’s research and development – headquartered at the Weyerhaeuser Technology Center in Washington State -- coordinates efforts which reach into all aspects of our businesses, including timberlands, wood products and pulp and paper products.
Weyerhaeuser spends approximately $75 million annually on research and development. Of this, 18 percent is in forestry, 14 percent in building materials and 49 percent is pulp, paper and packaging.
Forestry research – including that happening in the south at the Southern Timberlands Research Center in Columbus – centers around tree improvement and silviculture improvements. Tree improvement efforts include using traditional tree-breeding methods to improve tree seedlings, producing faster growing, disease-resistant trees. Our nearest tree improvement centers are at Bogalusia, La., and near Pine Hill, Ala.
Silviculture research and improvement efforts include everything from fertilization to tree planting spacings and thinning regimes. Southern research work includes water quality and hydrology and wildlife research. Hydrology research has included streamside management zone research which confirmed links between SMZs and water quality. Wildlife research includes black bear studies in North Carolina. Knowledge gained from our research helps us make decisions about what land to buy and what land to sell.
Wood products R&D runs the gamut from the best ways to cut 2 by 4s to advanced building systems in our Trus Joist™ business. In the new Weyerhaeuser, following the 2002 acquisition of Willamette, Wood Products represent 41 percent of sales for the company.
Wood product research includes development of advanced sawing equipment to optimize log ultilization and lumber research on plantation wood. Recent patents include the use of acoustics in lumber manufacturing to estimate wood quality.
Engineered wood products, and the trademarked processes and systems of Trus Joist™, account for 19 percent of the company’s sales now. Trus Joist, a Weyerhaeuser business since January of 2000, leads the world’s engineering lumber market with products including the Silent Floor® I-shaped floor joist, the company’s most popular product.
Other Trus Joist products include Microllam®, laminated veneer lumber, TimberStrand® Laminated Strand Lumber, Parallam® Paralel Strand lumber. ShearWall is a new product. Long-term research for TrusJoist focuses on the the establishment of building systems, which make it easier for contractors to use the engineered wood products.
Pulp and Paper product research and development includes keeping current products competitive and improving them, as well as the development of new markets for products and new uses for wood fiber. One example of new markets is the recent provision of cellulose fibers to the makers of cement-based home siding. The addition of wood fibers greatly reduces shattering and splintering of the siding, which competes mainly with vinyl siding.
Weyerhaeuser’s packaging products include many innovative offerings, including SpaceKraft® intermediate bulk containers, Tri-Wall® heavy duty packaging, point of purchase displays, singleface packaging solutions, internet and mail order packaging.
As we review the traditional and new products made from wood and wood fiber, we are reminded that wood is a remarkable raw material, sturdy, durable, renewable and recyclable. It is the construction material of choice for homebuilders and remodelers in many parts of the globe. Wood also insulates 400 times better than steel and eight times better than concrete. And it is more recycable than plastic. It’s important that we make sure that the public remembers these facts when they make purchasing decisions. That’s why programs like the Wood Promotion Network exists, to help the forest products industry meet competition from plastic, steel and concrete head on. The Wood Promotion Network is a North American campaign by forest products companies and their customers to promote wood in construction and to answer public concerns about forestry practices.
In this regard, we can help by making sure people know that forests not only grow wood but provide clean water, fish and wildlife habitat, recreational opportunities, spiritual renewal and even life-giving oxygen. As landowners in this day and age, we need to continuously reassure the public that we’re responsible stewards of our forests – and that wood products are a wise choice from an environmental standpoint. We are making progress in both these areas, both with the Sustainable Forestry Initiative™ for industry, the Tree Farm™ program for non-industrial landowners and with the Wood Promotion Network.
I know that I’m preaching to the choir here. You know the importance of the forest products industry to your communities and your state. You know the sustainability arguments; you can probably repeat many of the statistics I’ve shared. But as professionals, professors, students and researchers, you have a profound opportunity and responsibility to help others understand.
It’s important that the public understands that our industry is key to Mississippi’s and the South’s /economic and environmental future. SFI and the Tree Farm programs provide proof that the private landowner – both industrial and non-industrial – are indeed doing the right thing.
