I would like to make a few comments to the post by Bruce Wilkey. I think it is a bit far reaching to claim that pine plantations are mono cultures and that they are chemically dependent. Yes, most pine plantations are sprayed at the time of planting and probably once more at the age of two to three years, but that is generally the end of the spraying of chemicals until harvest at the age of anywhere from 20 to 35 years. If you object to this you should have true outrage to row crops such as cotton and soybeans which are sprayed multiple times every year. An additional point I would make is that the pines would still grow without the chemicals, the chemicals just give an economical edge and economics are the bottom line (like it or not). As to the issue of mono cultures the climate of the southeastern US (ie high rainfall and generally warm weather) and the hands-off nature of forestry management after establishment mean that in ten to twenty years it can be difficult to distinguish a pine plantation from a natural pine stand. Hardwood species definitely come back into the plantation. I think that Nelson Wongs first question is a valid one. Why? are the chip mills there. Answer; they are there because it is economically viable for them to be there. There is a readily available source for them to consume. The other industries you mentioned must not be paying the same price per cubic foot of wood that the chip mills are and thus they are not getting the wood. Lumber, furniture, and flooring should be reasonably high value products and should be able to compete with wood chip prices, but pallets are a low value product and generally uses the wood that is not suitable for the aforementioned products. Also, pallets can be readily recycled, so the "new pallet" industry is probably already in a decline due to recycling. If you could convince the non-industrial private landowners, who own the vast majority of land in the southeastern US, to take a lower price for their timber and sell it to the other timber industries instead of the wood chip mills there would be no wood chip mills. But I dare say that the timber would will be cut regardless. What is the difference from harvesting produced from a contractor supplying a wood chip mill and harvesting from a contractor supplying a furniture mill? More than likely the same harvesting contractor could/does perform both operations. How is harvesting the timber from a site depleting the soils? Where is your evidence? What is the depletion; erosion, nutrient removal? You stated that the established timber industry in Tennessee employs 60,000 people and is based on a resource of 60-80 year old trees. These trees are this age because just about the entire southeastern US was clear felled in the late 1800's and early 1900's and if you think forestry practices are bad now.... I have no proof on the Haiti issue that you raised but I would wager that those rain forests are gone, not because of wood chippers and monoculturalists, but because of slash and burn agriculture and the need for fuel to cook that sack of rice that they bought at Port Au Prince. These comments are my own opinions and I don't see them as necessarily defending the wood chipping industry, just adding additional facts and outlooks onto the situation and onto some specific comments that was raised in the original post. There are multiple sides to every story and perhaps the solution lies somewhere in the middle. Jason Thompson CSIRO Forestry and Forest Products Canberra, Australia
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