Katrina, imports combine to saw at forestry industry|[1/22/06]

Published 12:00 am Monday, January 23, 2006

Glen White spends most of his days surrounded by trees or tree products.

As a forester, he deals with live trees on private property in and around Warren County, advising landowners which ones and how many trees to cut. Then he handles the dead variety, managing paperwork on bids from local timber buyers.

And his gut feeling – as someone who know them so well – is that trees haven’t been as kind lately to the businesses that depend on them.

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&#8220Based on what I’m getting, the timber market’s really taken a pretty good beating this last year,” White said.

That could be due to a variety of factors, ranging from overseas competition and an anticipated decrease in the booming housing market to shifting preferences in cabinetry, he said. The numbers, however, and his industry peers back up White’s feeling: The local timber industry, while remaining a stalwart in the Warren County and Mississippi economies, has seen better days.

Statewide, there are around 10,000 fewer forest-related jobs than in 1993, according to a comprehensive report on the economics of Mississippi’s forestry industry published late last year by Dr. Ian Munn, a professor in Mississippi State University’s Department of Forestry and Wildlife.

Wages and salaries and total output rose in nominal dollars over that span, the report said, but lagged behind the state econo-