WV Senate Natural Resources Committee Hears WVFA

The West Virginia Forestry Association is a non-profit organization funded by its membership. Our members include landowners, loggers, foresters and manufacturing. Our members are concerned with protecting the environment, as well as enhancing the future of West Virginia's forests through multiple-use management. WVFA encourages and promotes sustainable forest management, undertaken sustainably.

• In West Virginia, forestry and related industries employ over 20,000 people.
• It is the only natural resource industry that is in all 55 West Virginia counties.
• Forestry contributes over $3 billion annually to West Virginia's economy.
• Approximately 1 in 6 West Virginians are forest landowners.
• West Virginia is the third most forested state.
• There are 11.9 million forested acres in our state or 15 million acres.
• West Virginia has over 7 million more acres of forested land than it did 100 years ago.
• West Virginia's forests are at least 94% hardwood species.

As an industry, our economics are improving but, as a result of the recent downturn in the economy, our infrastructure is considerably reduced. So, capacity is significantly down. Statistics by the state Department of Commerce indicate that we were down, as recent as 2013, over 40 percent in: number of wood industry ‘establishments,’ entities in the raw materials sector, wood product manufacturers and total employment. But, as said, our outlook is improving.

Finally, WVFA has administrative responsibilities—to one degree or another—for programs meant to improve forest sustainability and educate our citizens about wood, trees and forests; including, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, Tree Farm, Project Learning Tree and logger-safety/first aid.