[bradlys]

Timber shortage is kind of the wrong way to put it. We have a lack of redundancy in sawmills. We actually have a lot of timber - just not enough sawmills to process the timber and turn it into wood products that people can use in construction. Just like the CPU shortage - no one wants to build new fabs/sawmills because everyone assumes demand is just high for now and won't stay high forever... So, for now, they all get to raise their prices and rain in the profit.

[slashdot2008]

mills have been going out of business for decades since we are shipping whole logs overseas to be processed there.

Local small players, boutique mills if you will, can't even buy logs because the lots of logs that are put up for sale are so big only container-ship scale buyers are in the game.

I am 100% against exporting whole logs, we have lost so many jobs in the mills and supporting the mills.

[bradlys]

I don't know if that's the sole reason that smaller mills have been going out of business... As far as I know - we've had a massive amount of consolidation in mills under a few major corporations. (Same as anything, really) I agree with exporting whole logs as that seems very wasteful.

But I wouldn't be surprised if the reason boutique mills can't buy logs as easily is because there are contractual agreements with larger suppliers. That isn't really anything new in any industry... guess you need the government to step in to prevent that.