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Forest use has played a major role in the economic and cultural history of the Pinelands. For hundreds of years, Pinelands forests were harvested to provide fuel and raw materials for a number of industries. Many small sawmills formerly dotted the Pinelands landscape, producing various wood products from timber to cedar shakes. Traditional forest activities played a major role in a lifestyle that endured for centuries and formed an essential element of Pinelands culture. Forest use has contributed to shaping and creating the Pinelands ecology, as we know it today.

Forestry activities have dwindled dramatically in the Pinelands in the last twenty-five years. Only a handful of sawmills remain in operation. The impacts of this decline in Pinelands forestry include the obvious changes to the traditional Pinelands economy and culture as well as less obvious but still serious ecological changes. Continued and expanded forestry activities are critical in order to promote ecological, economic and cultural values in the Pinelands. The administration of its current forestry regulations by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission has been responsible for preventing the full use of improved forestry practices in the region.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that we, the delegates to the 90th State Agricultural Convention, assembled in Atlantic City, New Jersey on January 24-26, 2005, support the development of improved forestry regulations by the New Jersey Pinelands Commission to permit and encourage the use of management practices that maximize the productivity of the Pinelands forests and support the forest products industry while protecting the natural and cultural resources of the region.

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Pinelands Commission be encouraged to use a portion of the funds received from its 2004 agreement with the Board of Public Utilities to fund a study by Rutgers Cook College and NJAES of the migration, if any, of genetic material from the several plantations of Loblolly Pine and its hybrids that have been established in the Pinelands during the last 100 years. In particular, any adverse ecological impacts shall be defined and documented.