By Steve Ehle, Field Editor
From time to time I speak to civic groups or other assemblies of non-woodworkers. Often, during the Q&A segment after the talk I get the standard question about what the wood industry is doing about the “problem of cutting down all those trees.”
Before responding, I usually take a deep breath, count to five and ask the questioner if he or she really knows where those wooden chairs they’re sitting on, the tables in the back and the mouldings around the room are made.
Often the response is something like, “I don’t know, but I do know they start out as trees and we’re not doing a good job of protecting this valuable resource.”
After another deep breath, I talk about how the wood industry values and relies on trees just as much as the consumer of wood-based products and other items that begin with fiber. I add that there are more standing trees now in North America than there were 100 years ago.
I also mention that woodworkers are extremely aware of the importance of sustaining and growing our forests. We spend a lot of time and money to maintain these forests. And, with the cost of fiber-based materials representing a large percentage of the cost of a product, supply and demand of wood is a big factor in the cost of wood. So anything we can do to keep those costs under control benefits everyone.
Educating the public about the importance of managing sustainable forests is something I’ve championed since I got involved with the wood industry nearly 24 years ago. I recently completed the first draft of a curriculum guideline for K-12 teachers focusing on best practices for managing sustainable forests and the importance of forest ecosystems.
One of the sources I used was a textbook titled “ Introduction to Forestry Science,” written by L. DeVere Burton. In it, Mr. Burton writes:
“Thirty percent of the land area in the world is forest land, and forest products are very important to the economies of the developed countries of the world. The importance of the forests of North America and the world goes far beyond the production of wood products such as paper, cardboard, lumber, plywood, and structural beams. Forests also provide solvents, medicines, fuels and many other products that are important for our health and comfort.”
He goes on the add that forests and other forms of plant life “restore oxygen in our atmosphere and also act as huge biological filter systems that clean the environment by removing impurities from air and water.”
Another resource I used was a book written by Dr. Jean Mater titled “Reinventing the Forest Industry.” I, along with some other wood industry hacks, helped Dr. Mater edit her book. In it, she writes:
“Everyone, it seems, wants sustainability, although sustainable development makes many in the environmental movement nervous. Committed environmentalists view development as growth, the antithesis of preservation.”
She adds later: “Applied to forests, sustainability means managing forests to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs . . . The environmental community and the forest industry both hope that the change to ecosystem management for sustainable forests implies that forest lands are managed with an eye on the future.”
A third source I used was a forest education program put together by Learning, Experiences and Activities in Forestry (LEAF) out of the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point which also targets K-12 students. It starts at ground zero, explaining what is a forest, why are they important, how we sustain them, and what is the future of forests.
Included in the program is a CD that walks the instructor through a sample lesson plan that provides a roadmap for young people in the area of sound forest management. The program isn’t preachy and doesn’t get into the messy political issues that often divert our attention from sound forest management.
The point here is that we’re all part of the same personal interest group that realizes – or should realize – that forests and their vast resources benefit all of us, not just a few so-called tree-huggers.
