We Use Wood |
Wood Sources |
Solutions |
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| Americans consume 35 to
40 percent of the WORLD'S wood resources. Wood is one of the most widely-used
building materials and the main source of paper in the world. Wood is unique among all building materials. For its weight, it is one of the strongest natural building materials. It takes little energy to produce it compared to steel and aluminum. As long as forests are properly managed, new trees will grow to replace those cut to meet our wood needs. The forest products industry is sometimes criticized for cutting trees. The industry would not exist if we, as consumers, did not demand wood in our daily lives. In fact, our consumption of wood fiber continues to increase. Many people mistakenly think that all our forests are being cut never to return. That is simply not so! Yearly, hundreds of millions of new trees are planted by industry foresters. More wood fiber is being grown than is being cut in the U.S. each year. |
Wood products consumed by Americans come from three sources:
There is not enough timber on private forest lands to meet the consumer demand. Politically, we as a nation have decided to largely eliminate harvesting of timber from National Forests (timber harvest has never been allowed in wilderness areas and national parks). Because we use so much of the world's wood supply, Americans look very selfish to others in the world since we are not willing to even utilize the second-growth younger timber or thinnings in our national forests for wood products. As a result, the U.S. imports more lumber than any other country in the world. Some of that lumber comes from countries that have very little environmental protection.
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When trees are planted,
they are spaced much closer together initially than is healthy in a mature stand. As a
result, as the trees grow, the weaker trees need to be removed so that the others have
more sunlight and space to grow. This process is called thinning. During the maturing
process of a forest, thinnings occur several times. Some of the removed trees could be
used for wood products instead of being left on the ground to rot. Because of U.S. consumer's insatiable appetite for wood, it makes sense to utilize thinnings from National Forest lands. Very little if any of this is being done today. Another solution is to "stretch" the wood resource by getting more lumber and plywood from a log during processing. Not only is this good from an environmental standpoint, but makes sense economically from an industry perspective as well. This "resource stretching" is done by automation and quality and process control improvement in sawmills and plywood plants.. LQI is a key player in educating and assisting industry personnel to help make this happen. |