text: All industries evolve through various stage of  technology improvements and innovations that increase productivity.  To equate the decline of the timber industry jobs in Oregon (and throughout the western US) with bigger machines and improved mill technology is either naive or specious.  The basis for the timber industry is raw material (trees, logs) from forested lands.  The federal government owns the majority of forested land in Oregon, Idaho, and Montana.  Government policies (not just regulations and laws, i.e. ESA) have lead to the virtual cessation of logging on these forests.  It is indeed a testament to the "industry" that innovation and modernization  in both production and products has been able to  maintain as many jobs as there are given that the raw material supplies have been reduced to a fraction of what it used to be and what the potential is. (Not to mention the railcars of lumber from our best NAFTA partner, Canada.)