Each October, Americans pause to recognize an industry that touches nearly every part of our daily lives, from the homes we live in and the paper we use, to the carbon-storing forests that sustain our planet. National Forest Products Week, observed this year from October 19–25, 2025, is an opportunity to celebrate the people, forests, and communities that make up the sustainable forest products sector. It’s also a moment to reflect on why responsible forest management and domestic wood production matter more than ever.
America uses more than 100 million tons of wood every year. Yet roughly one-third of that wood comes from other countries, including places where environmental and labor standards fall far short of our own. As we mark Forest Products Week, the question isn’t whether we use wood, it’s where that wood should come from. The answer is simple: from responsibly managed forests right here at home, under the world’s strongest environmental, labor, and sustainability standards.
Here in the Pacific Northwest, we do forestry better. Our foresters and loggers protect clean water, fish and wildlife habitat, and replant every tree that’s harvested. We grow more wood than we harvest, ensuring forests remain renewable and productive for generations. But despite this capacity, our federal forests continue to face widespread overgrowth and rising tree mortality. Eighty million acres of National Forest lands are at high risk of severe wildfire, and tree deaths on these lands now outpace forest growth. Delays in much-needed thinning and restoration work, often tied up in years of federal bureaucracy and anti-forestry litigation, have left many forests vulnerable to catastrophic fires that erase entire ecosystems and release massive amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.
That’s why active forest management is a climate solution. When we thin, restore, and responsibly harvest trees, we not only maintain healthier forests and store carbon longer, we also provide the renewable materials that help replace plastics, steel, and concrete with climate-smart wood products. Every home built with sustainably harvested lumber keeps carbon locked away for decades, while supporting rural jobs and reducing America’s reliance on imports from countries with weaker environmental protections.
Today, the U.S. faces a shortage of 4.5 million homes. The Forest Service currently sells enough timber to frame about 175,000 homes each year. If it simply met the levels allowed under existing forest plans, it could supply enough American-grown lumber to build more than 385,000 homes annually. That’s not only a path toward solving our housing crisis, tt’s also a way to sustain family-wage jobs, strengthen forest health, and lower carbon emissions.
As we celebrate National Forest Products Week, we honor the people who work every day to steward our forests, supply renewable materials, and keep our rural economies strong. These are the loggers, mill workers, truck drivers, engineers, and foresters who ensure our forests remain both productive and protected.
This week (and every week) we can all participate by learning more about where our forest products come from, supporting sustainable forestry, and visiting the forests that sustain our way of life. Because when we choose American wood, we choose healthy forests, strong communities, and a more sustainable future.