Talk Business & Politics Daily: The Wal-Mart moves and Sun Paper impact edition

Thursday’s Talk Business & Politics Daily features Arkansas State Forester Joe Fox talking about the major economic impact of the $1.3 billion Sun Paper Co. project in south Arkansas on the state’s timber and forestry industries. It also features TB&P’s Kim Souza discussing Wal-Mart’s marketing moving news today, as well as political reporter Steve Brawner’s take on the Vice-presidential debate.

Fox, who heads up the Arkansas Forestry Commission, was in Fayetteville this week for the Arkansas Forestry Association annual meeting. He noted that the Chinese-based Sun Paper mill project slated for construction outside of Arkadelphia will be a huge contributor to Arkansas’ struggling timber industry.

“Sun Paper is a fabulous project for balancing the growth to the drain or harvest of our timber resources in Arkansas,” he said.

“We are growing way more pine and hardwood than we are harvesting right now – something to the tune of 9.5 million tons of pine grown every year in the state. Sun Paper’s use would be 4 million tons of the pulpwood size or smaller-size trees. That’s exactly what we need so that our forests don’t become too dense and therefore susceptible to southern pine beetles, more susceptible to wildfires, more susceptible to diseases we don’t even know about right now,” Fox added.

Watch his full interview below.

Also, Souza reports on how the financial markets received Wal-Mart’s news that it would sacrifice short-term earnings for more investment in its e-commerce side of the business. And Brawner tells viewers who he thinks won the Vice-Presidential debate on Tuesday night.