KMAX: News of the West

SACRAMENTO (AP) California's efforts to protect its own forest land is spurring more logging in other nations, particularly Canada, to feed construction in the nation's most populous state, according to a new state report.

The 1,400-page draft report by the state Department of Forestry, ``The Changing California, Forest and Range 2003 Assessment,'' is set to be presented to the Board of Forestry at its meeting this week.

``The more we don't produce here, the more it will come from other areas. We're just shuffling our environmental impacts somewhere else,'' William Stewart, chief of the state's Fire and Resource Assessment Program, told The Sacramento Bee.

The Bee obtained an advance copy of the report, which reflects a continuing theme by the logging industry. Environmental groups have accused state regulators of having a too-cozy relationship with timber companies.

The report also echoes a speech last month by U.S. Forest Service Chief Dale Bosworth at the World Forestry Congress in Quebec City, Canada, in which he worried about ``undermining the health of the world's forest ecosystems through consumption patterns that are out of balance with production.''

Among the report's findings:

California consumes nearly 15 percent of all the wood and paper used in the United States, the most of any state.

California's lumber production is at its lowest level in 20 years, while its timber harvests have fallen 60 percent since 1988. Nationally, logging on federal lands has fallen is to its lowest level in a half-century.

The state imports about 75 percent of its wood and paper products from Oregon, the U.S. Southeast, Canada and Europe.

The downturn means fewer jobs in counties like Siskiyou and Del Norte, where a quarter of residents' income is from public assistance.