Patrick Moore wrote (see www.greenspirit.com for the text): "First, it is important to note that fully 50% of all wood used in the world is burned to supply energy for cooking and heating, mostly in developing countries where people cannot afford fossil fuels. .... unsustainable fuel wood gathering >is< a major cause of deforestation in the tropical countries." ... and later on in the same article: "The second prong of their [the environmental movement] agenda is to reduce wood use as a building material and substitute it with so-called 'environmentally appropriate alternatives'. ... The only viable substitutes for wood as a building material are steel, cement, plastic and bricks. All of these materials require a great deal more energy to make than wood. ... All these substitutes are non-renewable and have severe environmental impacts of their own. ..." ... just some thoughts: If the logic of the above facts is extended to apply to the people in developing countries, it can be said that the unwitting agenda of the environmental movement - perhaps through ignorance of world land use and its consequences - is to further impoverish and disadvantage third world populations. Removing third world access to a supply of industrial wood (as opposed to fuelwood), which does not necessarily have to be of local origin (could be imported), would delay improvements in their standard of living since the alternative materials are also more expensive and therefore even more inaccessible. The third world alternatives, in turn would be to place even more pressure on local wood supplies, many of which are in the tropics and subtropics, not just for for cheap building materials but also for the sustained supply of fuelwood. It is worth noting that the level of fuel wood consumption - the other 50% - would be higher for a longer time if insufficient global wood supply were to prove detrimental to the standard of living in developing countries. This is exactly what the environmental movement would >not< wish to happen. Restricting the wood supply is, then, at best maintaining the global environment status quo, but more likely as the world population increases, taking a step backwards in areas of the globe where the penalty to be paid is least deserved. The bottom line then is, that viewed from a global wood supply perspective, wood taken sustainably from forests is better than no wood at all, and wood harvested from plantations is better still, as David South and others have advocated on this list. This is a better alternative than to suggest that we decrease or stop altogether harvesting the forest. - Stewart # ================================================= # | | | Dr. Stewart I. Cameron | | Canadian Forest Service - Atlantic Region | | e-mail: scameron@fcmr.forestry.ca | | | # ================================================= # | | | Disclaimer: the above opinions are solely my own | | | # ================================================= #
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