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.
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.