Dear Thor:
I posted this question to you back on Fri, 7 Mar 1997 11:29:42 -0600
I never got a reply (perhaps my server went down).
The original posting can be found at
http://www.metla.fi/archive/forest/1997/03/msg00073.html
For the sake of brevity, I will shorten the post to the following.
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Now, for a population of 10 billion people, here is where I would like to
see plantations located by the year 2050.
Million ha
United States 96
Canada 12
Europe 84
Japan 14
Africa 105
China 95
Asia (other) 183
Latin America 40
Total world 629
Except for Japan, I believe all of these plantations could be located on
current pastureland (see my proposal at bottom of e-mail)
Now, I believe 629 million ha of plantations could produce 6.3 billion
m3/year (on a sustained basis). That would leave
about 0.7 billion m3/year from other timberlands.
If we reduce the amount of plantations (which is occurring in some countries
like Finland due to European's objections to plantations), the wood that is
harvested will increasingly come from natural stands. If we only have 128
million ha of plantations in the year 2050, I say about 85% of the wood will
come from natural stands. In other words, we will be harvesting more wood
from natural stands in the future if plantations are not part of the
"holistic" and "far-seeing" environmental development policy.
More details regarding my estimates can be obtained from my paper.
Now Thor, I challenge to you is tell us how many ha of plantations we should
have in the year 2050 and
where would you like to see the plantations?
THEREFORE, PLEASE FILL OUT YOUR VERSION OF THE FOLLOWING TABLE FOR THE YEAR
2050.
Million ha
United States ?
Canada ?
Europe ?
Japan ?
Africa ?
China ?
Asia (other) ?
Latin America ?
Total world ?
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In other words, please let us know for a population of 10 billion people, how
many plantations should our world society have in the year 2050.
Please remember that some of the wood from plantations
will be used for energy in both developing and developed countries. For
example, the USA used 87,450,990 m3 of fuelwood in 1994; Denmark used
485,000 m3 of fuelwood in 1994;
Finland used about 4,101,000 m3; and Nigeria used 90,820,000 m3.
Finland and Nigeria, respectively, currently use about 0.8 and 0.9
m3/person/year for energy.
[Go to: http://gis.joensuu.fi/research/paju/front.html to learn more about
energy plantations in Finland]
Looking forward to your reply.
(p.s. I use both wood energy and fossil fuels to heat my home in winter)
David South
School of Forestry
Auburn University, AL 36849-5418
dsouth@forestry.auburn.edu
334-844-1022
334-844-1084 (FAX)
As always, views expressed here are my own
(and I am not speaking on the behalf of others).
I use only 100% post-consumer paper in my home printer.
(discarded used office paper printed on one side)
http://www.forestry.auburn.edu/coops/sfnmc/sfnmc.html
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The world population is expected to double by the year 2100.
Therefore the annual demand for wood for energy (etc.)
will increase and might double (to more than 7 billion m3/yr).
To provide plantation wood for people in the future,
support the planting of trees on pastureland.
Set a goal of converting 8 million ha of pastureland/yr for the next 55 years.
This would increase tree plantations to about 5% of the world's landbase.
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Support Zero Population Growth for the United States
http://www.igc.apc.org/zpg/index.html
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