Participation in efforts that maintain and diversify markets for forest products is a commitment of the National Association of State Foresters. This resolve is founded on the reality that diverse and robust markets provide financial rewards to the landowners maintaining them, reinforcing their incentive to keeping forests as forests. Having diverse markets is also important for the practice of "sustainable forestry" because it permits harvesting all of the materials produced by a forest and allows for management which does not high-grade and hence degrade stands. Beyond this, having markets for forest products allows the active forest management which provides the early- and mid-successional habitats needed by many wildlife species for a portion of their life cycle.

With this in mind, NASF charged its Forest Markets Committee to develop recommendations on what the association should do to pursue this direction.  Several efforts were undertaken – the results of these efforts have now been accepted by NASF’s Executive Committee and are ready for implementation.  Indeed, implementation is already underway on some fronts, but is now ready for focused attention.  The efforts undertaken by the Forest Markets Committee include

Recommendations for Maintaining and Diversifying Markets
The Forest Markets Committee developed a report outlining recommendations for maintaining and diversifying markets for forest products in the United States. The report includes both a long-term vision for an integrated national program and six near-term actions which are designed to build support for the program's implementation.

The long-term vision:

• incorporates efforts at the national, regional, and state levels,
• is involved with both the development of markets for traditional forest products and markets for ecosystem services,
• and is based on analyses of what the most pressing needs are at each level, as well as what the most significant opportunities are for action to maintain and diversify markets.

The near-term actions are:

1. Defining forests as a strategic national resource
2. Broadening and strengthening the network of persons and organizations that support the initiative to maintain and diversity markets
3. Selecting, packaging, and pursuing funding for a portfolio of illustrative projects from around the country to maintain and diversify markets
4. Ensuring representation of forested landscapes, landowners, and forest advocates in climate change mitigation solutions
5. Coordinating efforts to launch the community Wood to Energy Program
6. Including a "Maintain and Diversify Forest Markets" category within the USDA Forest Service State & Private Forestry redesign criteria

Strategy for Increasing the Use of Woody Biomass in the United States
The Committee also developed a strategy for increasing the use of woody biomass that includes the following recommended actions:

1. Assure sustainability of the forest resource
2. Support the existing forest industry
3. Develop a national community energy program
4. Provide support for federal operating incentives to encourage biomass energy
5. Incorporate biomass energy as a carbon-preferred energy use as federal carbon limits are considered
6. State foresters should serve as biomass energy leaders at the state and regional level
7. Support development of reliable information on current and future biomass supplies
8. Promote opportunities for long-term biomass supply from well managed sources
9. Address emissions from biomass boilers to protect public health
10. Support continued and increased funding to improve technologies to use woody biomass more efficiently, as well as funding for technologies that better harvest, process and transport biomass feedstocks
11. Be cognizant of the impacts, both positive and negative, that biomass energy markets can have on existing forest industries

Developing Markets for Forest Carbon Offset Projects
The Forest Markets Committee has also been working to develop markets for forest carbon offset projects designed to reduce atmospheric greenhouse gas levels and mitigate global climate change. This work has involved the following:

• Development of a set of principles for the efforts of NASF as regards climate change legislation likely to be considered by Congress in its next term.
• Participation in the Forest Climate Working Group's efforts to develop consensus among diverse partners on the role that forests should play reducing atmospheric greenhouse gas levels, and mitigating climate change.
• Participation in the American National Standards Institute's (ANSI) efforts to develop national standards in this regard.

Funding
Work on all of these efforts has been underwritten by grants from the USDA Forest Service to secure the assistance of consultants. These efforts have been supplemented with a great deal of time contributed by state forestry agencies. With the acceptance of the recommendations of the committee's recommendations, strategy, and the NASF's principles for its position on climate change, the Forest Markets Committee will now shift its focus to implementation, and will be developing an action plan in this regard. While some funding is already available for implementation, the Forest Markets Committee has recommended that NASF seek funding from state forestry agencies across the country, as well as seeking outside sources of funding to supplement those available from the state and develop the critical mass necessary to be effective.

NASF Forest Markets Committee
R. Alec Giffen, Chair

Other resources

A Strategy for Increasing the Use of Woody Biomass for Energy (September 2008)

NASF webinar on federal climate legislation (May 2009) This webinar was hosted by NASF Forest Markets Committee Chair and Maine State Forester Alec Giffen; Ellen Hawes, Policy Analyst for Environment Northeast, and Jad Daley, Director of Northern New England Programs for The Trust for Public Land also helped lead the discussion.