Page 24 - Tree Line - North Carolina Forestry Association - Second Quarter 2024

Preparing Plan B:
A Guidebook for Forest Industry-Reliant Communities Facing Economic Transition
The U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities The second goal is to introduce strategies to assist
(Endowment) is the nation’s largest public charity dedicated to keeping our working forests working. The Endowment was established in 2006 at the request of
the governments of the United States and Canada in accordance with the terms of the 2005 Softwood Lumber Agreement.
The Endowment has partnerships with private industry, federal agencies, state governments, academia, nonprofits, and philanthropy. Together, we catalyze sustainable change for the nation’s working forests and forest-reliant communities. We do this through supporting traditional and future forest markets, ecosystem markets, forest retention and health, and asset creation for minority and small-acreage forest landowners.
Approximately 30 pulp mills closed across the nation in the 2010s. While new sawmills, pellet, and oriented strand board (OSB) mills have been added, overall fiber consumption is down. Pulp mills — like Pactiv Evergreen in Canton, WestRock in North Charleston, SC, and Georgia-Pacific Foley in Perry, FL — provided significant market opportunities for landowners and the supply chain. The volume consumed by these mill closures will be hard to replace. We believe it’s important to help mill communities anticipate and recognize the signals when a dominant community employer is facing downsizing or closure. This belief led to the creation of Preparing Plan B: A Guidebook for Forest Industry-Reliant Communities Facing Economic Transition.
The guidebook has two major goals. The first goal is to create a detailed checklist of what community leaders should look for to recognize signals that a disruptive mill closure could be on the horizon. Several examples of these signals include repeated changes in ownership or leadership; boards heavily weighted to mergers and acquisitions without forest products industry expertise; or the use of Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a re-organization tool.
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communities to “get out in front” of an economic transition
at a major employer. Rural and small-town leaders are busy working on today’s issues and often find it hard to find the time and resources to look back and see the historical and economic patterns that shape the community, or to see the qualities of
a hometown often taken for granted. Strategies in this goal center on cultivating and broadening leadership, networks, and collaboration. Communities with adaptive skills and collective agency are better equipped to not only recognize and respond to change but also to proactively chart a path toward a thriving future. Communities can see assets with new eyes, examine entrenched assumptions and narratives related to identity, and chart an alternative future.
An additional strategy within this goal addresses
securing new sources of capital to fuel a community’s future. Looking for new ways to support the industry may uncover opportunities to attract public or philanthropic capital to help a resident mill remain viable. Alternative capital paired with technical assistance may offer a lifeline for businesses in the mill’s supply chain.
The wood products industry, and the communities it is a part of, are changing. There is a shared interest for all to work together for mutual benefit. When those conversations and partnerships take place, a culture of shared stewardship takes root and new ways of measuring success can be realized.
Scan for a copy of
PreparingPlanB:AGuidebookfor ForestIndustry-ReliantCommunities FacingEconomicTransition.