Wood has become an indispensable part of America's construction industry. But how long will it last? Pressures on the forest are increasing as environmentalists, loggers, and recreational users argue over policy. The result: America's forests are closing to loggers.
The world's largest timber producer, America, produced 410 million cubic meters of wood in 1991. That is 50% more than Russia, three times more than Canada, and nearly 10 times more than Sweden, Europe's largest timber producer.
But that's getting ready to change. Last year, the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) announced that it would stop selling timber from 62 of the 156 national forests it administers because the government was losing money on the sales. In the temperate rainforests of the Pacific Northwest, the Clinton Administration wants to slash the timber harvest on federal lands by 75%. In the high mountain forests of the Southwest, logging has ground to a virtual halt. Half a dozen sawmills in Arizona and New Mexico have been shuttered in the past 21 months.
"We are going through a paradigm shift where the old set of rules is pretty well worn out," says Yale University forestry professor John Gordon. Part of the so-called "Gang of Four" that devised the scientific basis for Clinton's plan, Gordon believes the reduction in the timber harvest is not just a battle about the spotted owl. Rather, he says, "People now want different things from forests. The rules governing the American forest were made at the turn of the century, when our population was rural. Now it is mostly urban."
On the other side, M.J. Kuehne of the Northwest Independent Forest Manufacturers in Tacoma, Washington, says Clinton's policy has caused timber prices to double over the past two years. Kuehne said half of the sawmills in his association have closed over the past few years. "Right now, there is virtually no timber being sold from national forest lands in Oregon and Washington because of all the lawsuits." Kuehne's group is involved in four lawsuits at present and he doesn't see any court-ordered resolution to the deadlock any time soon.
While environmentalists and timber companies fight it out in court, Jack Ward Thomas has taken the helm at the USFS. A biologist, Thomas is viewed with skepticism by timber interests. He is also a firm departure from the past. During the Reagan-Bush era, timber interests were allowed unprecedented access to America's public forests. In the late 1980s, timber companies were shipping billions of board feet of whole, unmilled logs to Asia. The export practice, now illegal in Washington, displaced thousands of workers. Critics say if the industry wanted to save jobs, it should have milled those logs in the United States.
Politics and lawsuits aside, America's appetite for lumber continues to grow. And if America doesn't produce enough timber to meet domestic demand, where will we get it? Canadian forests are facing many of the same pressures as American forests. We could use more rainforest wood, but the environmental consequences of uncontrolled logging could be disastrous.
One promising alternative is "green" lumber. Over the past four years, nearly a dozen groups have launched programs to certify timber companies that produce lumber in a sustainable manner. Some call it "stewardship forestry," a few industry members prefer "well-managed forestry," others like "long-term forestry." Whatever the moniker, analysts believe the move toward green certification and marketing of green lumber will accelerate over the next few years.
The oldest program, launched by the Rainforest Alliance in 1991, is called Smart Wood. So far, the program has certified log-ging operations in Indonesia, Mexico, Brazil, and New Guinea. Logging outfits in 20 other countries are now seeking certification, including several in the U.S. The program also certifies lumber sales outlets and furniture suppliers who carry Smart Wood.
Green lumber is now available in Austin, at the Stripling-Blake Lumber Co.. Last year, the Collins Almanor Forest, owned by Collins Pine Co., a California timber producer, became one of three domestic timber operations to be certified by Oakland-based Scientific Certification Systems (SCS). Collins' forest manager Bill Howe says the company pursued the certification because it wants to be identified as a responsible timber company. "We are betting on the fact that this will be a big market for people who buy lumber and want certified green lumber," he said.
While certification is gaining popularity, the fledgling industry faces several hurdles. Green certification has not been embraced by large forest products companies like Weyerhauser and Georgia-Pacific. But perhaps the most important question is: who will certify the certifiers? Although Rainforest Alliance and SCS dominate the certification business right now, a spate of European and American groups are entering the business. To assure credibility, environmentalists and certifiers have created the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), a non-profit group which will begin accrediting certifiers sometime this summer.
Technology may also help reduce timber consumption. Engineered wood products use wood veneer, wood chips, and other wood products to make lightweight materials that are stronger than regular lumber but use less wood fiber. The new materials are used for beams, roof trusses, and other applications.
Another solution may be to switch to treeless paper. Much of the pressure on global forests comes from pulp mills, which make paper. Every year, some four billion trees are cut to make paper products. And by the year 2010, worldwide demand for paper is expected to double. Employing alternative materials like kenaf or hemp could free up millions of acres of trees for lumber production. Several farmers near McAllen are now growing commercial quantities of kenaf and one entrepreneur in the area is trying to find financing for a kenaf-based pulp mill.
Treeless paper, engineered wood and sustainable logging are laudable ideas, but they will take years to become realities. And they do nothing to diminish the hunger for forest products. So for the foreseeable future, it appears lumber prices will continue upward and pressures on the American forest and tropical rainforests will increase. Timber analysts say that demand for wood products in the U.S. is expected to double by 2005. But with less forest open for logging, Americans will likely have to rely on imported lumber to make up the difference. Said one analyst, "It seems our society has decided that we are going to save our forests and use somebody else's."