All of Oregon’s forests have some level of legal protections—laws and rules that include restrictions on management activities. About 23 percent of the state’s forestland (6.3 million acres) is classified as “reserved.” This is forestland not open for timber production and includes wilderness areas, old-growth reserves and national parks and monuments. Another 18 percent (some 5 million acres) is incapable of producing significant wood for commercial purposes, generally due to adverse site conditions. The remaining 59 percent (16 million acres) is available, though not necessarily used, for wood production. This includes federal and non-federal public ownerships, tribal forests, non-industrial private forests and large commercial forests.

It is important to note that the 38 percent of Oregon’s forestland that is privately owned currently produces most of Oregon’s commercial timber, whereas most of the 57 percent that is federally owned is managed primarily to emphasize mature forest habitat or other conservation and recreation values and not wood production. As a result, actual annual harvest on federal lands has declined from around 5 billion board feet in the 1980s to less than 0.2 billion board feet in 2001.

All private and state forestland is protected under the rules of the Oregon Forest Practices Act (OFPA), the nation’s oldest and one of the most comprehensive set of guidelines governing harvest practices and other forest management operations. Although most Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands are not regulated by the OFPA, these federal agencies meet or exceed many of its requirements. The state’s landmark land-use laws offer further protection by tightly restricting the conversion of forests to other uses, ensuring that future generations will have ample forest resources.