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TREE CUTTINGl
Article #122, August 2007
By Bill Cook
For decades, forestry outreach has been trying to encourage private forest owners to manage their forestlands. Perhaps, the biggest hurdle might be convincing people that tree cutting can be a good practice. Joining the bandwagon against tree cutting seems to be popular and the "politically correct" thing to do, especially considering that most people no longer live anywhere close to the land. However, let's examine the practice a bit further.
Everyone
is a major consumer of wood, which comes in hundreds of forms such as lumber,
paper, chemicals, foods, clothing, etc. Emerging technologies are making wood
an increasingly feasible source of clean and renewable energy. Few people are
willing to do "without" so that means our increasing daily supply
of wood (4-5 pounds) has to come from somewhere.
Imagine
living without wood. Start with surrendering such commonplace products like
toilet paper and Kleenex. Give up the books, posters, newspapers, and other
reading materials. Much of your furniture has wood in it. Your house is largely
made from wood. The wood came from a forest somewhere. Better domestically than
elsewhere.
You
can forget about anything electric, as few people receive power that has not
been transported over wooden utility poles.
Nearly everything you buy comes in packaging that contains cardboard, boxes,
pallets, crates, or dunnage (the wooden pieces used to keep goods from moving
around on ships).
The
real kicker for many of us would be giving up coffee, chocolate, cinnamon, and
vanilla. Hmmm. Now we're getting a bit serious.
Next
time you might grumble about tree cutting somewhere, think about running around
half-naked, looking for bugs and tubers to eat. We all need wood. We all need
good forestry. We don't necessarily need to know a lot about it (although it's
really quite interesting) but we should encourage and allow the professionals
to provide guidance and advice. You trust your doctor, don't you? Or the folks
that manage your retirement investments?
Wood is one of those commodities
that flow around the world largely unnoticed. Yet, for hundreds of years, it
has been one of the most traded raw materials. Wood has played a significant
role in the success, and failure, of entire civilizations, including ours. Historical
geographer Michael Williams has written a couple of insightful books on the
topic.
It's
hard to over-emphasis the importance of wood, although few people think much
about wood and wood products. We lead busy lives.
There
are few ecologically valid reasons to avoid timber harvest. Cutting trees provides
for regeneration, improved habitat for many species, maintains forest health,
and helps us shape forests for the future. For forest owners, it does all this
while providing revenue. The story is an exciting one for those that listen.
Harvesting,
processing, and manufacturing products from wood carries the lowest environmental
cost of any raw material. So, substituting a wood product with some other material
in order to "save a tree" is actually ecologically unfriendly. Good
ideas are not always intuitively obvious.
Michigan
has one of the greatest annual increases of wood volume in the nation. We have
grown more wood nearly every year since the great logging era of a century ago.
We have one of the largest forests among the 50 states. Yet, Michigan is a net
wood importer. So is the United States. We import wood from other states and
foreign countries. Many countries don't have the ecological protection infrastructure
that we do. Importing wood raises questions of self dependence, global sustainability,
and social justice. Maybe the best way to save the rainforest is to manage and
harvest our back forty.
How
in the world will Michigan be able to create a "greener" bio-based
economy if people won't allow trees to be cut?
The
Michigan ownership with the greatest accumulation of volume is owned by individuals
and families. Nearly 60 percent of Michigan's forest falls into this category.
Yet, across the Lake States, this category is the least productive, at least
in terms of fiber supply. Landowner reluctance to harvest puts increasing pressure
on public and corporate forests, as well as those forests outside our borders.
Are
the decisions made by private owners sustainable? Good stewardship? Now, these
are good questions with complex answers, depending upon how somebody defines
sustainable or good. In this nation of private property, each owner has decision-making
authority and responsibility. Somewhere in this mix lies an ethical and practical
quagmire. It's not a particularly easy dilemma.
While
forest management involves a great deal of well-established science, the important
questions may very well lie beyond the science. What is right? What is self-serving?
How will our grandchildren fare? From where will our future supply of wood come?
Will our decisions of today compromise our future? Will visual quality continue
to win the day over sustainability? Does fiction have more to do with action
(or inaction) than fact?
These private forest lands hold the key to future economic, social, and environmental stability. Yet, these forests are becoming increasingly unavailable to management and wood supply. The world is full of opportunities for good people to do good things and help correct bad situations. Tree cutting is just not one of those bad situations.
- 30 -
Trailer
Bill Cook is an MSU
Extension forester providing educational programming for the entire Upper Peninsula.
His office is located at the MSU Upper Peninsula Tree Improvement Center near
Escanaba. The Center is the headquarters for three MSU Forestry properties in
the U.P., with a combined area of about 8,000 acres. He can be reached at cookwi@msu.edu
or 906-786-1575.
Prepared
by Bill Cook, Forester/Biologist, Michigan State University Extension, 6005
J Road, Escanaba, MI 49829
906-786-1575 (voice), 906-786-9370 (fax), e-mail: cookwi@msu.edu
Use
/ reprinting
of these articles is encouraged. Please notify Bill Cook.
By-line should read "Bill Cook, MSU Extension" Please use the article
trailer whenever possible.
Michigan State University is an affirmative action equal opportunity institution. The U.S. Department of Agriculture prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, national origin, gender, religion, age, disability, political beliefs, sexual orientation, and marital status or family status. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.)
This website is maintained by Bill Cook, Michigan State University Extension
Forest in the Upper Peninsula. Comments, questions,
and suggestions are gratefully accepted.
Last
update of this page was
30 July, 2007