Residence and forest products businesses can be excited about the efforts taking place in Southwest Colorado addressing our wildfire threat and community protection.

The degree of consensus and the amount of resources in play are at their greatest here. Southwest Colorado hosts a small cluster of sawmills, wood products businesses and harvesting contractors. This includes sawmills that have been in operation for decades longer that a lot of us can call Southwest Colorado home, as well as new business startups making products for developing markets in biochar and cross-laminated timber.

It is this mix of forest products and infrastructure that helped lead to our community’s selection to host the new Rocky Mountain Forest Restoration Initiative (RMRI) and the Southwest Wildfire Impact Fund (SWIF). One aspect that must have increased attention is the ability to use an increasing amount of low-quality wood that is being removed as part of consensus-based management of the RMRI and SWIF.

A large amount of the wood resulting from these initiatives represents material that cannot currently be used by our forest products businesses. Too often, wood material is being left in piles for later burning, chipped or decked in place instead of being used. Increasing support and investment to retain and grow our resident forest products businesses as well as adopting new technologies and new wood products will be necessary to fully support the goals of the RMRI and SWIF.

Tim ReaderLa Plata County