The President marked National Forest Products Week with a message describing forests from the Pacific Northwest to Appalachia as among the country’s major natural assets, urging conservation combined with responsible use to support households, jobs and future prosperity.
The message said two Executive Orders signed last year sought to expand domestic timber supply and reduce reliance on imports from foreign markets, followed by announcements of over half a billion dollars in new domestic industry investments.
It also said the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service sold over three billion board feet of American timber this year, the highest volume sold in almost three decades, and achieved 116 percent of its annual reforestation goal, the highest level in twenty-six years.
The message pointed to logging, forestry, manufacturing and construction workers carrying on a long tradition of using woodland resources. It said the administration was cutting regulatory requirements affecting logging and paper manufacturing and cited the Make America Beautiful Again Commission for active forest management and conservation.