Exotic Woods & Deforestation

[John Michaels]

Thought I'd get some opinions from others here at the creek on the subject of using woods like zebrawood, bubinga, sapelle, etc for furniture. I'm fairly new to woodworking and one of the first pieces of wood I bought was a piece of bubinga. I searched for info regarding deforestation and bubinga but haven't found alot of useful info on the subject. Info seems pretty sparse. What little I did find indicates the species as vulnerable. To move the subject closer to home, here in the US as a result of decades maybe even centuries of logging there is hardly any real old-growth left. Living in the pacific northwest the impact from logging on salmon and other wildlife is apparent. So to the point: Is it more responsible to buy woods like maple & cherry and shun the exotics or would that just cause more demand and impact closer to home. I think this is the start of long thread.

[Ben Martin]

John, I am just as concerned about this issue as you and am interested on what some have to say.

But just a note, I was reading a article this weekend while at the Chicago Center for Green Technolgy. It said that the US has something like 367 billion bdft of lumber in it's forest, we cut down 6 billion per year, BUT 10 billion grows every year. So I would take that source as reliable, so I don't think there is any worry of running out of wood. BUT, the point of the article was that we still need to keep in mind about sustainable harvesting, etc. Another idea that you could look into for your area, is a company like Horigran (http://www.horiganufp.com/) they saw trees that are being cut down for disease, trimming or development. I plan on making a trip there and bringing back a nice haul.

[Jim Barstow]

I try to buy FSC certified wood whenever possible. It is a little more expensive but at least I know it isn't the result of clearcutting somewhere. Most domestic hardwoods are available certified locally. If I use tropical hardwoods, I try to use them for highlights so I use very small quantities.

The wood supplier I go to had a huge slab of rosewood the other day; it would have made a spectacular table. I just couldn't bring myself to buy it.

For furniture I buy, you can find pieces from sources that use wood responsibly. We just bought an outside table made of recycled teak beams. It weighs a ton but required no new trees to be cut.

[Mike Henderson]

I don't know the answer but I'll point out that when there's a market for something that's renewable, you have a chance of having that resource properly managed. That is, the countries who have that timber have an incentive to protect it and log it in a responsible way. There's no guarantee that will happen but economics is a powerful force.

I don't know of any problem in the US with domestic hardwoods like cherry, walnut, oak, etc. Most of these woods are eastern US woods and they've been harvested since early in our country's history. There's lot of incentive for people to manage the forest properly, especially at the cost of domestic hardwood today.

Wood is just another crop, like wheat or corn.

Mike

[Tom Sontag]

...Wood is just another crop, like wheat or corn...Mike

Pulp wood is certainly farmed this way and monoculture can be efficient in that one sense, but it has plenty of environmental consequences for the species that used to live in the area. One of the most threatened environments on the planet (in terms of a very small percentage of the original remaining) is the tall grass prairie, which we have converted to monocultures of corn and soybeans. These are not environmentally neutral choices that are being made in the interest of efficiency.

To the OP, some of my first wood buys were exotics too. Some of these woods are very exciting to see and work, but if you are going to make furniture, consider evolving to domestics for a while. They are often easier to work, cheaper to learn on, and can look absolutely beautiful. Unless you force bad grades into your projects or use inappropriate finishes for the wood you choose, craftsmanship and design will probably be more limiting factors in your success than wood choice IMO.

[Mike Henderson]

Pulp wood is certainly farmed this way and monoculture can be efficient in that one sense, but it has plenty of environmental consequences for the species that used to live in the area. One of the most threatened environments on the planet (in terms of a very small percentage of the original remaining) is the tall grass prairie, which we have converted to monocultures of corn and soybeans. These are not environmentally neutral choices that are being made in the interest of efficiency.
I'm not advocating monoculture at all. Some exotic trees cannot be grown on farms. "Farming" those trees saves not only the tree "farmed" but all the other environment that is required for that tree to be successsful.

Anytime man chooses winners and losers in the environment there are reprecussions, but we have to make choices. The idea that we can ignore economically valuable resources is naive - looters will go in and take the valuable resource without regard to the long term consequences. Better to manage them than to let them be destroyed. And managment by ownership has proven to be the best way - where the owner can make money from managing the resource. Otherwise we have the "tragedy of the commons" - where each is incented to take as much as possible while giving back as little as possible.

We do a good job of managing our (United States) hardwood forest through private ownership. Even though wood is a long term crop it responds to the market. The amount of forest land in the United States is increasing even as our population gets larger.

Mike

[John Michaels]

Pulp wood is certainly farmed this way and monoculture can be efficient in that one sense, but it has plenty of environmental consequences for the species that used to live in the area. One of the most threatened environments on the planet (in terms of a very small percentage of the original remaining) is the tall grass prairie, which we have converted to monocultures of corn and soybeans. These are not environmentally neutral choices that are being made in the interest of efficiency.


A similar scenario is the central valley in California. There were once vast wetlands there, but many have been drained to grow crops. I think the real root of the problem is overpoulatiion. There is simply too many people. Something I find interesting is how you never hear people talking about having less children. China is mandating it, but as far as I know no one else is.

I often feel a certain justification about choices I make. I tend to drive alot less than I used to. In the old days I would get in the car a just go for a drive. Don't anymore. I tend to acquire less junk and useless cra* than just about anyone I know. I turn the heat down and wear a sweater in the winter. I turn off lights when I leave the room. So when I go to buy wood I like the exotics and have bought a fair amount of it. I have mixed feelings about that, but I feel my overall "impact" is far less than many Americans. I'm not trying to make excuses by any means, but that is how I feel - right or wrong.

[Tom Godley]

When you travel around the world - it is almost unimaginable what we have done to it in the last 100 years. I am almost fifty and have had the opportunity to travel and return to many remote areas since I was a child. To see mammoth trees clear cut in Indonesia for plywood only to make shipping crates - That is wasteful. This has and still goes on all over asia/ africa/ and south america.

The packing and packaging waste in Japan to this day is surprising.

But the use of a tree to build a piece of furniture, is in my opinion, not one to feel guilty about. I would be interested to know the percentage of imported wood that is actually used to build furniture vs being used for flooring and woodwork/trim.

That said, I am not sure I would use Brazilian cherry again for flooring after seeing some of it harvested not long ago.

[Harry Goodwin]

I have heard that our buying the product of these woods increase their value as we know and they don't burn it for heating and cooking. Actuially an increase in value makes burning impractical. Harry

[Craig D Peltier]

When you travel around the world - it is almost unimaginable what we have done to it in the last 100 years. I am almost fifty and have had the opportunity to travel and return to many remote areas since I was a child. To see mammoth trees clear cut in Indonesia for plywood only to make shipping crates - That is wasteful. This has and still goes on all over asia/ africa/ and south america.

The packing and packaging waste in Japan to this day is surprising.

But the use of a tree to build a piece of furniture, is in my opinion, not one to feel guilty about. I would be interested to know the percentage of imported wood that is actually used to build furniture vs being used for flooring and woodwork/trim.

That said, I am not sure I would use Brazilian cherry again for flooring after seeing some of it harvested not long ago.

There is a local guy here that knows where to get these imported crates and takes them apart and sells them to woodworkers. Hes even found ebony. He has such strange woods that I have never heard of.

[Danny Thompson]

My rule of thumb is, if I am making something disposable or with a short life, make it from local, easily renewable woods (birch or pine for jigs, for example).

If I am building something that I think will have more permanence, or an heirloom, I think exotics are a good choice. This will result in a double benefit:

1) The piece will highlight nature's beauty and remind me of the need to tend and preserve our natural resources.
2) The beauty of the wood will add value to the piece and make it less likely I will dispose of and replace it--i.e., it will prevent waste and reduce future consumption.

Take for example, a jewelry box. I could buy one made of MDF or poplar, but I would be much more likely to throw it away and replace it every few years. But if I had one made of Wenge and Lacewood, I would do everything to keep it productive and useful for the rest of my life and beyond.

Maybe this is just rationalization, but it allows me to sleep at night.

[Cliff Rohrabacher]

I don't give it a moment's thought. If the Brazil or Borneo government won't manage their own resources I am not going to try to do it for them.

[Jim King]

I find it very interesting these conversations about the supposed deforestationof the Amazon. The world has the concept that the Amazon is dissapearing but in fact they should be worried about the problem in North America. I will post a note I put on another similar site about some simple facts that may suprise you. I could go on for days about this but will keep it short and hope I do not offend any of the people who sincerly believe the Amazon is dissapearing.

Karen: I read with interest your concern , I am the jungle guy people were referring to. I understand that you have this Amazon is dissapearing pounded into your head every day . Please read the explanation below and let me know your thoughts. My email is jameskingpe@yahoo.es and my web site is http://www.exoticwoodworld.com/ (http://www.exoticwoodworld.com/) . Please contact me at anytime but I think people would like to see the flow of information here on the blog.
The WWF financed by the US Government Agency for International Development has recently forced a new forestry law on Peru in return for political tradeoffs. I will give you a couple of examples and facts about the new law. The Amazon was divided up into thousands of 10,000 acre and larger concessions to be rented on 20 year leases. 95% of these concessions are inaccessible without the building of hundred and hundreds of miles of roads to extract the logs which in its self would guarantee the largest deforestation project in the history of the Amazon.. Cutting logs lengthwise with a chainsaw was made illegal as they say it creates to much waste as the chain wastes to much wood. Until now it was legal to cut up a tree into railroad tie size pieces and carry them out on the backs of people . Now in order to do it legally you must have a $50,000 to $200,000 skidder to smash thru the jungle a few miles and pull out the tree that could have been carried out by hand damaging nothing. NOW. the best part of this portion of the law. It IS legal to cut whatever and all species for firewood or charcoal and totally flatten sections of jungle. If you are not cutting firewood you are limited to the size of each species you can harvest. Being that there has never been a forestry study done here no one knows what or how many species exist. The result of this a great percentage of the trees in the Amazon never reach the minimum size of the diameters set by the WWF boys in NY sitting behind those CITES protected mahogany desks so it is like a chicken farmer waiting for his chickens to get the size of turkeys before he sells them. It´s not going to happen. Lets let them fall over and rot. What has been accomplished is that the harvest of wood due to the new law is at least 95% illegal and that is not all bad by local standards. Now the local indigenous communities that the world is being told are the protectors and know it alls of the jungle that control millions of acres of land simply sell their wood to the loggers illegally without permits, the logger charges his illegal log volume from the village against the forestry concession he has never seen and the government authorities all get their bribes for letting it happen. Actually the whole system is working very smoothly. I am certainly not against the wise use of our resources and the protection of species. Much to the contrary but before laws are made by ignorants to supposedly protect things they do not understand they should at least know what they are talking about and stop pulling the dizzying array of numbers and projections out of the air only to raise money that never sees a jungle or what it was supposedly raised for is very common and big business. A drastic misconception of many people is that logging is creating deforestation. It is the exact opposite. No logger has the time nor money to clear cut a piece of jungle which has hundreds of species which are not marketable. Why would he waste time and money doing this?¿ The deforestation is created by the absurd forestry laws created by idiots like the WWF which make it impossible for people to work with their largest natural resource and are forced to slash and burn acres of non productive land for subsistence farming to feed their families. The fact is that if people were allowed to cut a few trees on their property and sell them legally thousands and thousands of acres would not be cut for slash and burn. Very simple –cut a tree and save thousands. It would be very interesting if the same fiscal responsibility laws and use of funds applied to NGO,s as applied to Enron. Same story different title. The Amazon is huge and it is an extremely rare occasion when a tree is harvested more than half an hour by log skidder from a navigable river as it is not profitable pulling a tree any farther. Thus leaving leaving hundreds of millions of acres that have still been untouched If you were to do a google search on the age of trees in the Amazon you will get dizzy reading opinions from 20 years average life span to 600 years. There in fact are no studies to substantiate any thing that agree with each other . After being here for 25 years my best guess would be an average life span of 50 years would be within reasonable range. It is certain that the waste of trees is incredible. If you calculate that only 5 % of the healthy and mature trees in the Amazon fall over each year you can see the Billions of board feet of lumber rotting away with no one trying to save it. Each acre of jungle typically has about 40,000 bf of timber and each year at least 5% of that falls over naturally and is never harvested. Trees here fall over naturally as they mature as they have no deep root system to support them. The root system is on top of the ground searching for nutrients.There is an abundance of experts in NY, London etc whom have never stepped foot in the Amazon but cry a good story about it being endangered and raise good money from a lot of well meaning people . After 25 years here one is hard pressed to find ANY evidence of any of these groups doing anything but crying to raise money to preserve their job in a tax free supposed do gooder corporation. We also have this continuous chorus of do gooders who want to save the indigenous people from something and keep them where they are. Then we have an epidemic of missionaries who want to work them over in another direction. The indigenous people like their radios, cooking pots, shoes etc. as much as anyone. What do gooder has the right to tell them they have to keep running around naked and stupid or stop believing in what ever they believe in and believe in something new .
I live in the State of Loreto in the Country of Peru which is 40 percent bigger than Oregon and harvests one half of one percent of the annual harvest of Oregon. I am not worried about the Amazon disappearing next week unless the WWF gets ahold of it.. I and others are working very hard to get the laws changed that were made by the WWF to allow people to legally harvest wood and stop the slash and burn.
.


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[We also have this continuous chorus of do gooders who want to save the indigenous people from something and keep them where they are. Then we have an epidemic of missionaries who want to work them over in another direction. The indigenous people like their radios, cooking pots, shoes etc. as much as anyone. What do gooder has the right to tell them they have to keep running around naked and stupid or stop believing in what ever they believe in and believe in something new .
Howdy Jim, I thought you might have an opinion. fyi, I spent many years trying to get to either Africa or Mexico as a missionary. I was going work in linguistics / literacy and other areas. I guess that puts me in your second wave of invaders. Always good to see an issue from a different perspective.
Winton
Always brush the woodchips off your clothes. The one who does your laundry approves your tools.

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Winton:
As we are getting way off topic I will keep this one short. Many of the missionaries here are doing a very good job but we do have a lot of fakes that just make a very good living just pretending. I certainly didnt mean to insult anyone that means well but some need it .

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I dont think many people are aware when they send $25 a month to the WWF that the WWF is already receiving millions of dollars from the US government using US tax dollars to support a tax free organization. Does that sound right ? The strange thing is they are not afraid to show it. The question is where does it go ? No sign of ANY activity here in the heart of the Amazon. Below you will see a media note bragging that 10.6 million dollars of US taxpayer money loaned to Peru has been now reallocated from not payment back to the US Treasury but to the WWF. Has the WWF ever sent the US taxpayers a receipt or thankyou for these diverted funds?
How many nice little deals like this are there around the world ?¿ My rant is over now unless anyone wants to read more and there is more. Does everyone know that with the new Free Trade Agreement that Washington signed with Peru a few days ago the US supposedly now will be the enforcer of the forestry lawsin Peru. That is another real peice of work. I dont mean to insult anyone but facts are facts and when I am mixed up in this virtually daily and the false propaganda machines keep pounding on innocent unknowing people it gets quite disgusting.
It is hard to tell who the honest one in this mess when the WWF gives another version in their propaganda. Here is their version in another press release.
TFCA Debt-for-Nature Swap
Has provided leadership and support for the http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/11495.htm (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/11495.htm) between the Peruvian and US Governments. Under this agreement, the US Government will relieve US$10.6 million of Peruvian debt over the next 12 years, in exchange for the Peruvian Government's direct payment of these funds to Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, and WWF. Funds will be used to implement effective long-term management in priority protected areas.

Media Note
Office of the SpokesmanWashington, DCJune 27, 2002http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/ (http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2002/)
U.S. and Conservation Groups Sign Debt-for-Nature Agreements with Peru

As part of President Bush’s effort to conserve tropical forests around the world and fight illegal logging, the United States yesterday signed debt-for-nature swap agreements with Peru and three U.S.-based international conservation organizations that will generate $10.6 million for forest conservation activities in Peru over the next 12 years. The agreements were authorized under the Tropical Forest Conservation Act (TFCA).
Under the agreements, the United States, through the Department of the Treasury, is providing $5.5 million to cancel a portion of Peru’s debt. U.S. Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund are jointly contributing $1.1 million. In return, the Government of Peru will fund tropical forest conservation activities through local non-governmental organizations in Peru.
Peru is home to 84 of the 103 types of "life zones" found on earth and ranks as one of the world’s most biologically diverse countries. This debt-for-nature swap deal will help fund the creation, restoration and management of parks and protected areas in Peru’s extensive forests, as well as train scientists, managers and technicians involved in forest conservation.
Peru is the fourth country to benefit from debt treatment programs under the TFCA, which was enacted in 1998 with broad bipartisan support to provide eligible developing countries the opportunity to reduce their debt to the U.S. while generating funds for in-country forest conservation activities. Agreements have been concluded with Bangladesh, Belize and El Salvador to date. The Secretary of State administers tropical forest agreements under the TFCA.
Today’s historic agreements were signed by U.S. Under Secretary of the Treasury John B. Taylor, Peruvian Finance Minister Pedro Paulo Kuczynski, and executive officers from the three contributing conservation organizations.

[Dave Stuve]

Vote with your dollars. Try to buy FSC certified woods, and make sure your suppliers know you're interested. That puts a slight pressure all the way back up the supply chain to the growers that the customers want sustainably-harvested products. That helps the growers who are good stewards compete against the clear cutters. Otherwise, the market competes largely on price and the good guys are at a disadvantage.

Another great source of wood is local - many cities have small shops that cut up trees that are removed due to disease, hazard, blocking someone's view, etc. You'd be surprised at the quality and variety of trees that are coming out of people's backyards.

My local, as an example: http://www.urbanlumbercompany.com/

Dave Stuve

[Jim King]

There is not much gauraurantee with the scandel ridden FSC boys either.

http://www.fsc-watch.org/

WWF responds to Peru scandal (http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/07/26/WWF_responds_to_Peru_scandal)Tags: Peru (http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/?country~=Peru), WWF (http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/?policy~=WWF)

Following queries from FSC-Watch, WWF International has asked us to 'correct' the article we posted (http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/07/20/Certification_of_Forestal_Venao__Peru__another_FSC _credibility_disaster__courtesy_of_SmartWood_and_W WF) a few days ago concerning the scandalous certification of Forestal Venao, Peru. In fact, WWF's helpful clarification of its role does not require us to 'correct' the article, but we are anyway happy to include the WWF response below in full.
As readers will see, WWF's response not only confirms what we published earlier, but also corroborates from another source that SmartWood was well aware of serious concerns about Venao before they issued their certificate - but proceded to issue it nevertheless.

We believe it would be helpful if WWF would now make publicly available copies of the letters it has sent to SmartWood, USAID, UCIF and the President of Peru, Alain Garcia. Clearly, if SmartWood has ignored even WWF's advice, then this is a matter of the utmost seriousness for the FSC. We also invite WWF to inform the readers of FSC-Watch as to whether they have instituted a formal complaint to FSC against the certification of Venao.
Message from Fred Prins, WWF-Peru:


We are and have been very much concerned about the situation re Forestal Vanao and the Unión de Comunidades Indígenas Fronterizas del Perú (UCIF), which we also expressed to Smartwood at the time of their evaluation. We have been also directly attacked by Forestal Vanao, through UCIF, for voicing these concerns. The facts are:

WWF has not provided assistance to Forestal Vanao for the certification in regency of its operations in the communities in Sawawo and Nueva Shahuaya. Technical assistance was provided by the USAID financed Alernative Rural Development programme, and contracted to Chemonycs. CEDEFOR was not involved.
WWF carried out a "pre-scoping" mission to Forestal Vanao and the communities represented by UCIF in Oct 2005. In our final report we made a number of observations indicating our concerns of the operations conducted by Vanao, from which we concluded it would not be in the interests of WWF to support or provide technical assistance to these operations through the CEDEFOR project. The WWF team was lead by Steve Gretzinger.
WWF expressed its concerns to SMARTWOOD in an official letter during its evaluation process of Vanao's Operations, as well as had meetings with SMARTWOOD representatives after certification was awarded, again voicing our concerns.
WWF also discussed these concerns with USAID.
The Unión de Comunidades Indígenas Fronterizas is an indigenous federation set up by Forestal Vanao, and composed of Ashaninka communities composed of indigenous immigrants brought in from Selva Central, thus not autochtonous to the area. UCIF is not a member of AIDESEP and not recognised by AIDESEP, the national indigenous federation representing indigenous peoples in the Peruvian Amazon.
UCIF has publicly denounced WWF for voicing its concerns about the operations of Forestal Vanao, to which we have replied.
WWF works with and supports Aconadysch, the local indigenous federation representing 6 indigenous ethnic peoples autochtonous to the area. Aconadysch is a member of ORAU, the regional indigenous federation and a member of AIDESEP. Specifically we have supported Aconadysch in strengthening its capacity as well as on proposals for land titling, management and natural resource plans. This support is provided through the Moore financed Amazon Headwaters initiative, and not through CEDEFOR.
WWF has consistently made public its concerns about illegal logging and its support for sustainable forest management and certification. Its last public statement, an open letter to President Garcia, signed in conjunction with other Civil Society Organisations, including AIDESEP.
WWF Peru has a public policy statement (principles) concerning its alliance with indigenous peoples, jointly developed with AIDESEP.It is important that we make clear to those concerned that WWF does not support Forestal Vanao's operations, nor are in agreement with the Certification awarded by SMARTWOOD, that we have made these concerns public, and that we request FSC to investigate this certification, which puts in danger the reputation and integrity of FSC certification.

Note: FSC-Watch challenged WWF's claim above that "WWF has not provided assistance to Forestal Vanao for the certification in regency of its operations in the communities in Sawawo and Nueva Shahuaya". As noted in our original posting, this appears to be contradicted by what is written in various WWF reports to USAID, which FSC-Watch has in its possession, about WWF's relationship with Venao. One of these, dated October 2005, stated that "WWF is working with the Peruvian company, Forestal Venao and five indigenous communities to conduct baseline assessments and technical assistance".
On this point, we have received further clarification from Fred Prins, as follows:
"I can reiterate that WWF did carry out a pre-scoping mission to determine if we should work with Vanao. Based on that and discussions with Vanao we decide not to engage. USAID did pursue the engagement.
We did not provide technical assistance. We have expressed our concerns to Smartwood, and we continue to share concerns about the certification. We do believe that FSC should investigate the case and would welcome their attention to this case."
Posted by FSC-Watch on 26 July 2007, 09:36 (http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/07/26/WWF_responds_to_Peru_scandal) | Comments (1) (http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/07/26/WWF_responds_to_Peru_scandal#comments) | Backlinks (0) (http://www.fsc-watch.org/archives/2007/07/26/WWF_responds_to_Peru_scandal#links)

Comments

Here is a related alert:

ACTION ALERT PLEASE FORWARD WIDELY!

FSC and Big Green Ancient Forest Logging Tragedy Worsens

By Rainforest Portal, a project of Ecological Internet, Inc.
http://www.RainforestPortal.org/
July 28, 2007

TAKE ACTION
Support for "certified" ancient rainforest logging crumbles further due to string of inappropriate and illegal certifications, most recently in Peru; and as Norway rejects FSC and all primary rainforest logging certification schemes

http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=peru_fsc

An ancient rainforest logging operation in Peru recently certified by Rainforest Alliance SmartWood under the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) scheme has been implicated in massive cross-border illegal logging. Workers from the Peruvian company Venao Forestal have been crossing into Brazil and building an extensive road network to illegally fell CITES-listed mahogany. The FSC certifier SmartWood has turned a blind eye to serious illegalities in logging companies it has certified under FSC as providing "responsible forest management". This illustrates yet again that a FSC seal is no guarantee of either ecological sustainability or legality. Global ecological sustainability including addressing climate change critically depends upon ending all industrial scaled ancient forest logging. The situation is rapidly emerging as a major international incident; for which WWF, Greenpeace, FSC and SmartWood are responsible... Peru is now added to a list of countries that already includes Guyana, Congo, Russia, and Indonesia, where WWF has helped massage highly controversial and sometimes illegal companies through the FSC certification process, as Greenpeace sits mute in charge of FSC's board. SmartWood has conclusively shown that they are unfit to remain as an FSC accredited certifier... Meanwhile the Norwegian government has decided that it cannot rely on any certification system including FSC to help implement its newly announced ethical procurement policy.

TAKE ACTION NOW:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=peru_fsc

DISCUSS ALERT:
http://www.rainforestportal.org/issues/2007/07/alert_fsc_and_big_green_ancien.asp

[David DeCristoforo]

<TRUTH> We (humans in general) have done a crummy job of managing precious resources. We have been lousy stewards of the planet in every respect. Now, when virtually everything is either "endangered" or extinct, we want "someone" to "do something" about it.</TRUTH>

<RANT>Better late than never? Maybe so. Too little too late? Also maybe so. It is my MMHO that we have simply ignored these issues because it was easier than doing something about them. In the early 1970s we understood that alternative energy sources were needed because the supply of oil was finite. Here we are now in 2008 (almost 40 years later by my count) an we really haven't done squat about it. We talk about the need as if we just found out about it a week ago. In that time, we could have slam dunked the problem. It's the same with woods. We allow the best stuff to fall into the hands of those least likely to use it wisely because that's "where the money is".</RANT>

At this point, I do not have any issues with using a few board feet of fine hardwood (wherever it comes from) to produce a beautiful object that will last for generations. I do have a problem with the idea of using that same material to make some veneered MDF piece of crap that will end up in a thrift store (with luck) or a land fill.

Whew!
YM

[Vic Damone]

John, +1

Living in the northwest near the great Redwoods this issue is a daily visual and not simply a sad segment of a National Geographic Special. Just north of San Francisco the Bohemian club has a substantial stand of old growth Sequoia ( many consider this to be an unrenewable species ). Presently someone would like to harvest a large portion of this stand. By the time the dust settels and the news becomes forgotten we'll lose more of these amazing two thousand year old giants, and for what?

Crates or cabinets it doesn't matter one bit to the tree what it's carcass is being used for. Even for some responding here there is a rational, a situation, a qualifier. As long as I use it for ________ .

Are you kidding?

[Brian Kent]

Some starting places:

I had a good conversation with my local lumber supplier, letting him know I was watching for certified lumber. He agreed with my reasons and also wants to market it as it becomes more available.

I am using domestic sources more, using exotics for smaller pieces and trim.

I am watching the tropical tree farms to see which might be legitimate. No criteria to judge yet, but investment in reforested trees seems like a good possibility if there is some accountability.

I buy fair trade coffee because it is worth another dollar a pound for me to know the farmer is getting $1.25 / lb instead of $.25. Hopefully other commodity systems like lumber will see a profit in certified renewable products.

[Scott duprat]

It happens here in the States...here in the northeast and also in souther quebec, maples are taken, basically crippling some maple sugar makers...

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/20/us/20timber.html?n=Top/Reference/Times%20Topics/Subjects/L/Logging%20Industry&pagewanted=all

Face it, when it comes to an easy buck, some people just don't care what the fallout is. Third world or not.

Scott

[Darren Duchi]

I am a manufacturer of Lumber Products in the west, we are not a sawmill, but I was once fsc certified because like many of us here we all want what is right. What i would like to express is that Certification is nothing but a pretty little package to make the consumer feel better about the impending purchase. The only real reason i would know this is because it cost me thousands of dollars to realize that it was a disguise for extorting money from the US forest products industry and ultimately the consumer. Now, i realize that this has nothing to do with exotics and their deforestation, but i would like you to know the facts about My Certification Process at least in the Western United States.