{"id":535,"date":"2010-04-08T14:30:08","date_gmt":"2010-04-08T22:30:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=535"},"modified":"2010-11-17T16:31:04","modified_gmt":"2010-11-18T01:31:04","slug":"legislature-passes-southeast-state-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/?p=535","title":{"rendered":"Legislature Passes Southeast State Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today the legislature passed a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.legis.state.ak.us\/basis\/get_bill.asp?session=26&amp;bill=HB 162\" target=\"_blank\">bill<\/a> creating the <a href=\"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/Southeast-State-Forest-Map.pdf\">Southeast State Forest<\/a>.\u00a0 The legislation weaves together 20 parcels of state land in Southern Southeast and designates them for long-term forest management.<\/p>\n<p>Southeast Alaska\u2019s timber industry has changed drastically over the last 20 years.\u00a0 Since the termination of long-term timber contracts in the 1990s, it has becomes increasingly difficult to get a consistent supply of timber from federal lands.\u00a0 The closure of pulp mills and local sawmills resulted in a 30% economic hit to Southeast that we still haven\u2019t recovered from.<\/p>\n<p>Establishing this state forest will ensure land remains available for long-term forest management and will increase timber volumes.\u00a0 The selected parcels are an important part of the state\u2019s timber base and merit active management by state foresters.\u00a0\u00a0 Lands in the state forest will continue to be open for multiple-uses; including use as wildlife habitat and recreational activities.\u00a0 I appreciate the extensive public-process that went into creating the forest, and the support local communities and the <a href=\"http:\/\/gov.alaska.gov\/parnell\/services\/boards-commissions\/board-factsheets.html?i=039\" target=\"_blank\">Board of Forestry<\/a> provided for passing the bill.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019m hopeful establishing the forest will aide small town sawmills and improve forest management in our region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today the legislature passed a bill creating the Southeast State Forest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7,23],"class_list":["post-535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-bert-stedman","tag-forestry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=535"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1130,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/535\/revisions\/1130"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bertstedman.com\/new\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}