Hello Andrew, I just read your respons to Bret's contribution. Being a forester / ecologist from the "great old world" of Europe I feel the need to respond to your statements. Do you realy think Americans do not want to pay more money for wood, when they know it has not been harvested from old growth forests? In my country we do not have any old growth forest left, because over three hundred years ago people used to think like you. Now many people are willing to pay high prices for wood products when they know it doesn't come from tropical rainforests or any other natural forests. This is a new impulse for our own forestry sector. Today it becomes more and more interesting in Europe to invest in forestry, because an increasing number of people begin to believe this is the only way to maintain sustainable woodsuply. Is this proces not started in the US yet? If not I see two possibilities: 1. either the US consists of mainly uncivilised people that do not care for their impressive natural herritage and only think in terms of money; 2. or the wood-supliers in the US do not have the creativity to make many people aware of the great advantages of using wood from production forests, both for the American nature and for the economy: production forests will be the only solution for wood suply in the next to come future. I am very interested in your opinion about this and I'm looking forward for your reply. Erwin Al Wageningen, The Netherlands. phone/fax: +31 317 412 751. e-mail: e.j.al@ikcnblf.agro.nl
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