Maryland's Trees Create a Truly Green Economy
Like many other states, Maryland has an active forest markets industry. Working with private landowners to practice sustainable forest management is paying off in spades.
"Forest products are a $4 billion-a-year industry in Maryland," State Forester Steve Koehn said. "For comparison, seafood is a $950 million industry." While Maryland has 2.5 million acres of forest — 41 percent of the state's landmass — few of the tracts are expansive. The state owns about a half-million acres, about 211,000 of them contained in 10 state forests from Western Maryland to the Eastern Shore.
Recently, Maryland has been growing 30 percent more wood than it cuts and producing 100 million board feet a year — or enough wood to build more than 3,300 average-size houses. The top five species milled are oak, poplar, maple, pine and cherry.
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