It can be too easy to pile blame on environmental groups and activists for the logging decline and mill shutdowns &c in the Northwest. There are other major reasons--forest products companies moving operations to and buying property in the Southeast, where trees grow much faster (e.g., Weyerhaeuser in Mississippi) and competition from companies in western Canada, where provincial governments that own the public land offer subsidies that may (depend on one's sources of info and viewpoint) exceed subsidies on USFS and state forest lands. Many cars of eastbound lumber from B.C. and Alberta ride MRL through Montana.