Forestry subcommittee considers new timber target

The Department of Natural Resources plans to sell more timber from state-owned land over the next decade after officials say a recently released report found those forests could sustain higher harvest levels.

The House Subcommittee on Mining, Forestry and Tourism learned more about the department’s plans during an informational hearing on the report Wednesday.

DNR officials believe the new sustainable harvest level for the forests it manages should be 870,000 cords of wood annually, up from the annual target of 800,000 cords of timber for sale over the last 15 years.

The DNR is also proposing a five-year pilot project to offer an additional 30,000 cords of ash and tamarack annually over that period in order to harvest more of those woods before they are lost to invasive species.

The department believes the increase would provide a “consistent, reliable source of wood” for the state’s forest products industry, the fifth-largest manufacturing industry in Minnesota.

Forrest Boe, director of department’s Forestry Division, outlined an analysis of the issue the DNR recently finished, telling the committee the industry needs a reliable source of wood it can count on now and in the future.

“That’s a really important thing,” Boe said. “A number that fluctuates up and down is not a good thing for the industry.”

But Wayne Brandt, executive vice president of Minnesota Forest Industries, told the committee the DNR’s recommendation was too low, that the forests could sustain a higher harvest level and that his industry needs a larger harvest to combat rising inflation and sluggish prices.

Brandt also challenged the assertion that the DNR’s 870,000 cord recommendation actually represents an increase in the harvest.

“They increased last fiscal year and this fiscal year to 900,000 [cords] and now they’re going to 870,000, that sounds like a decrease to me,” Brandt said.

He suggested the numbers used to do the computer modeling that helped determine the recommended harvest average were too conservative, and that the forest could sustain a harvest in excess of 1 million cords for the next 15 or 20 years.

Gov. Mark Dayton had directed DNR to determine whether a timber harvest of 1 million cords annually was sustainable and, if not, to recommend an alternative level.

The department manages 5 million acres of forest and harvesting occurs on 2.75 million acres of these lands – state forests, wildlife management areas and school and university trust land. They supply about 30 percent of the state’s wood.