By Tom Kelly
Editor and Publisher

East Texas is a place where the term "urban interface" is a whole lot more than an academic concept. It's a living reality with ultimate consequences, as people in expanding metropolitan areas are increasingly crowding the living space of trees--long a mainstay in the diversified timber and forest products industry of that area.

It has been noted that the Houston metropolitan area contains more population than all of the State of Louisiana, which means that in terms of political clout, the city--consisting of the actual municipality plus all the suburbs and heavily populated corporations which surround it for several miles in all directions--has the power to outvote virtually the entire East Texas timber belt in a crunch. Thus, forest interests are always seeking allies in the political arena to protect private property rights of farmers, ranchers, forest landowners and the related commercial and manufacturing businesses that serve them.

And when the forest industry goes to bat politically in Texas, the leadoff hitter is Ron Hufford, Executive Vice President of the Texas Forestry Association based at Lufkin in the middle of the East Texas pine belt.

Lufkin, county seat of Angelina County, is among the top ten timber producing counties in Texas, approximately halfway between the Gulf coast and the Arkansas-Oklahoma border--the region where pine is king. It sits amid a variety of forest products manufacturing facilities situated throughout the East Texas region, although sadly not at the moment including the huge Abitibi Consolidated paper mill which has been mothballed for the past almost two years. (The words "Piney Woods" is a part of the name of numerous commercial firms in the region--not least of which is this publication which enjoys significant readership there.)

In a recent interview, TFA executive Hufford reviewed several issues which the Association had an interest in during the 2005 session of the Texas Legislature, which completed its every-other-year general session the past July.

Hufford pointed out that the Forestry Association works on many issues with lobbying groups representing farmers and ranchers, and others interested in private property rights, for mutual benefits and protection from other groups which attempt to control land use to the detriment of forestry and other interests.

Hufford is a 1971 forestry graduate of Southern Illinois University. He served a hitch in the U.S. Air Force in Viet Nam, and worked as a ranger with the U.S. Forest Service before joining the Southern Forest Products Association as a field representative in 1975, working from that Association's headquarters at Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, through 1983, ending his service there as manager of field services for SFPA. He joined the Texas Forestry Association in 1984.

Reviewing the acts of the Legislature, Hufford said a significant item is the "Purchase of Development Rights" act, which permits eligible holders, such as land trusts, or local or state government agencies, to purchase development rights for conservation purposes from private landowners. Landowners participate on a voluntary basis, and retain ownership.

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