COEUR d'ALENE - While three-quarters of Idaho's timberlands are in the national forest system, federal lands account for only 10 percent of timber harvests in the state.

That's not sitting well with everyone.

"It's obviously doubtful that we'll ever return to the peak harvest levels of the 1960s and 1970s," said Nick Smith, executive director of an organization calling itself Healthy Forests, Healthy Communities. The group advocates for logging federal lands to benefit local communities.

Between 1947 and 1990, federal lands provided 43 percent of timber harvests in the state.

"The pendulum has shifted too far to the other side toward what I call the 'hands-off approach' to federal-land management," Smith said Wednesday.

Bonner County Commissioner Glen Bailey couldn't agree more.

Bailey has six kids and 11 grandchildren. He wants to ensure young people have job opportunities in North Idaho, and he believes more logging in the Panhandle would help.

"The economic downturn took its toll," Bailey said. "I had a son who was out of work for eight months."

The son recently found another job, in woodworking.

"He loves working with his hands, and working with woods from the forests around us up there in Bonner County," Bailey said in a meeting with The Press editorial board Wednesday.

Since 2006 in Priest River, more than 600 jobs related to logging and timber processing have been lost, he said.

"We want more duties and responsibilities and the ability to help manage, actively manage, these forests," Bailey said.

According to statistics from Smith, national forests in Idaho are 35 percent more dense than others in the state. This makes the federal forests more susceptible to insect and disease outbreaks and increased fire risk, Smith said.

Republican state Sen. Shawn Keough, speaking as executive director of the Associated Logging Contractors group, said loggers don't want to see insect and disease outbreaks and forest fires lead to wasted timber.

"I think we have over a million acres that Gov. (Butch) Otter has identified, surrounding communities, that if we don't take care of them through active management (then) wildfire will," saidKeough, who joined Smith and Bailey for the discussion.

The decline in federal timber harvests is due, in part, to federal "analysis paralysis" and environmental litigation, they said.

Heath Heikkila, a government affairs adviser for the American Forest Resource Council, said in Montana and the Idaho Panhandle there is 250 million board feet worth of timber held up in litigation and appeals.

"Our hope is we can start to show that you can do this responsible forest management and that it will improve forest health and that it benefits rural economies," Heikkila said.

Robert Boeh, vice president for government affairs for Idaho Forest Group, said the company's five Idaho mills get their logs from private and state lands.

But if something happens that affects the company's access to those sources, it will need to tap federal forest lands for timber. Idaho Forest Group is the largest lumber producer in Idaho, employing 850 people.

"We would like to see more of the Forest Service land managed so we can serve more of our customers throughout the U.S.," Boeh said.

The company wants all of its mills operating at full capacity, he said.

"We could go from 850 people to 1,000 people if we could get the extra production," Boeh said.

According to Smith's statistics, it's estimated that for every one million board feet of timber harvested, 18 jobs are generated, along with $614,000 in personal income and $2.6 million in sales of goods and services.

They all said the demand for more lumber exists.

Heikkila said the U.S. doesn't log enough to supply its own lumber demands, and is forced to import from places like Canada.

"We have, in the Pacific Northwest, the most prolific growing forests anywhere in the world," Heikkila said. "We could be helping to meet demand in other places."

Boeh pointed to the Jasper Mountain area north of Priest River as a timber area that is unhealthy because of insects and disease. The Jasper Mountain area needs timber thinning to reduce fire hazards, he said.

The Forest Service is "looking at treating somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 acres," Boeh said. "That's just one of the 26 (U.S.) Farm Bill projects in the Idaho Panhandle."