I take exception to something that was said by (I think) Nelson Wong
on Nov 30, 1995. If I have the author of this quote wrong I humbly
apologize.
>The question here is not whether old-growth forests are a renewable
>resource but whether timber by itself is a renewable resource."
I take exception because the question, as I see it, is not whether
timber by itself is a renewable resource, but whether old-growth
forests are a renewable resource.
I fully believe that when managed properly, timber is a renewable
resource. I have no problem with some of the timber coming from
natural stands and the remainder (perhaps the bulk) coming from
plantations. Yes, I live in a wooden house and I enjoy building
things like furniture and toys from wood. I would much rather see a
piece of land that was once bottomland hardwood forest used to support
a pine plantation than to see it supporting a government subsidized,
poor quality soybean, rice or cotton field. I would much rather see
it as a bottomland hardwood forest, but realistically, we want (need?)
the wood and it has to come from somewhere.
My problem with the above statement is that I do not think that
old-growth forests are a renewable resource. If we as a society are
so greedy as to cut the last old-growth forest, do we have any hope
that we as a society will allow any second growth forest to remain
uncut for centuries so that we can have more old-growth forests. I
think the notion is ludicrous. Once the old-growth forests are gone,
they are gone for good.
The reason that wood product companies want to cut the old-growth
forests on public land is that all of the available old-growth forests
on private land have been cut (some have been preserved by
organizations like the Nature Conservancy and are no longer
available). The wood product companies would have you believe that
they must cut the old-growth forests to supply public demand, and that
is true to some extent. However, public demand can be satisfied
(within reason) via plantation wood. The problem for the wood
products companies is that they do not make nearly as much profit from
plantations. If lumber becomes more expensive, people will become
more frugal and use less. On a plantation you must plant the trees
and manage their growth through thinning, fertilization, etc.. This
all takes money. Cutting old-growth trees on public land cost next to
nothing in comparison. Nature has done the "management." All the
timber company has to do is pay a nominal fee to the government, let
the government build the logging roads (in many cases), cut all of the
trees and walk away with their pockets full of money. Of course I have
overly simplified this but I think the costs comparisons would support
my argument. If I, as a consumer, have to pay more for wood because
that wood comes from plantations, then I will gladly pay that price if
it means the protection of the small amount of old-growth forest that
remains uncut. Several polls that I have seen (and no, I don't have
references, this was mostly on TV or radio news programs) show that
the public, in general, would also support higher prices for the
protection of old-growth forests and the biodiversity they support.
A question that is relavent to this discussion and to which I have
never seen a good answer is, if cutting the old-growth forest is so
very important to the timber industry, what are they going to do when
the last old-growth stand has been cut. At current cutting rates that
day is not very far in the future. Don't use job losses as a rational
for continued logging of old-growth forests as those jobs will be lost
soon anyway. I think that it was Aldo Leopold who once said, "the sign
of an intelligent tinker is that he keeps all of the parts." We seem
to be throwing away a lot of parts and we have no idea of their
function or the consequences of their loss.
I apologize for giving you a $1.00 worth instead of $0.02.
BobK
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