| 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. |
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Wood
products consumed by Americans come from three sources:
- Private forest land
- Federal lands
- Imports
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. |
