NEWS

How will new mini-grants help the future of the forestry industry?

Answer: Roots & Reach grants to undergraduate student forestry and natural resources clubs will help promote the many benefits of careers in forestry. 

PHOTO © AMERICORPS & FORESTCORPS

New research shows promising potential for one of North America's most abundant but underutilized hardwood species. Many hardwood species, including red maple, have mechanical properties that can compete with or exceed those of commonly used softwoods. However, a key barrier has been the lack of grading systems for evaluating hardwoods' structural performance.

The Trump administration recently published a report, The Great Transshipment Scam, that shows the enormous scale of transshipment and tariff circumvention. The report documents how goods subject to higher U.S. tariffs are routinely rerouted through countries with lower tariffs, undermining both tariff enforcement and U.S. manufacturing.

U.S. imports of hardwood plywood are down by 34% year to date through June. The volume of imports from Vietnam and Indonesia has fallen by more than 60%, likely as a result of the successful antidumping and countervailing duty challenges brought by the Coalition for Fair Trade in Hardwood Plywood. However, the spike in imports from Malaysia and Cambodia, up by 212% and 654%, respectively, suggests that transshipment may already be happening.

DHA joined more than 1,000 U.S. forestry and forest products associations and companies in a letter to President Trump. The letter encourages the Trump administration to continue to push European Union leaders to recognize that the U.S. forest and wood products supply chain poses a low risk to global deforestation and to remove all unnecessary and burdensome regulations in the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) for U.S. exporters.