Growing a Sustainable Forest Industry

In the Lumber Heritage Region, both the forests and the forest industry have recovered from the unsustainable logging of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Trees, the state's most valuable natural resource, now yield one billion feet of hardwood lumber each year, supporting a $17 billion annual forest products business, while these forests also produce more than two million cords of firewood annually for local, renewable heat. More than 80,000 people work in Pennsylvania's forest industry, and thousands more depend on healthy, beautiful, biologically diverse forests through recreation, tourism, hunting, and fishing. By managing forests in ways that conserve soil structure, water quality, and biological diversity, landowners keep forests productive and healthy, while well managed public and private forests strengthen the economy and quality of life across the region. Nearly 2.5 million acres of Pennsylvania's forest, including all 2.1 million acres of the state's forestlands, are credited as sustainably managed by the Forest Stewardship Council, making Pennsylvania the largest certified hardwood forest in the United States. Forest products are used constantly, from paper and lumber to toothpaste, chewing gum, and rayon cloth, and most of Pennsylvania's harvested trees become lumber for furniture, flooring, paneling, veneer, and even major league baseball bats. Healthy forests also provide clean air and water, wildlife habitat, beauty, recreation, solitude, and help fight climate change by absorbing greenhouse gases.

South Williamsport, Pennsylvania · United States