January - March 2001

Sustainable Forestry: Growing Wood More Wisely

New Techniques and Standards Could Save Last Ancient Forests, Restore Damaged Woodlands

Trees. How we love to look at them, climb them, and lie in their cooling shade. But we all also use the many products made from them – to build and heat our homes, panel our offices, and to provide the paper our offices devour. Yet at the rate we are consuming them, ecologists warn that the last of our forest wildlands will soon be tattered remnants of their former glory.

• More than 95% of our ancient forests have already fallen. East of the Rockies, only a scattering of individual specimens remain. Global forest cover has been reduced by 20 to 50% since pre-agricultural times.
  
  
• Tropical rainforests are being felled at a rate of two football fields per second, 214,000 acres per day -- an area the size of New York City.
  
  
• The average American uses 735 lbs. of paper each year. Half the waste in our landfills is paper that could have been recycled.
  
  

We use wood as if there were no tomorrow. Yet we depend on healthy forests for our very survival – to stabilize our climate, fertilize our soil, shelter wildlife, remove air and water pollutants, and so much more. How can we reconcile our need to utilize our forests with our equally urgent need to preserve them? Many say the time has come to stop turning the last of our ancient forests into two-by-fours and toilet paper. And not just sentimentalists and schoolchildren. The nation’s two largest do-it-yourself home retailers, Home Depot and Lowe’s, and two of the nation’s largest homebuilders, Kaufman and Broad and Centex, have decided to phase out sale and use of old-growth products, phase in use of only sustainably harvested wood products, and promote wood efficiency and conservation in construction techniques.

By holding timber harvesting to strict environmental standards, forest product certification offers a promising remedy for the most damaging impacts of conventional forest management. The gold standard in certification, the Forest Stewardship Council, is the only independent, international, third party organization offering certification to forestland managers, lumber mills, and retailers around the world. FSC policies support workers’ and indigenous peoples’ rights, community economics, sustainable yield practices, and mitigation of the destructive environmental impacts of timber production.

The logging industry has already begun responding to these marketplace shifts by transforming their harvesting techniques to meet the needs of customers like Home Depot. In response to consumer and stakeholder campaigns, companies are changing the way they use and procure paper and other forest products, instituting policies that reduce costs and yield other bottom-line benefits.

Between January and March 2002, MMP conducted a major public education campaign on these issues. In all, we scheduled 252 radio, television, and print interviews in 31 states. Of these, 41 were regionally, nationally or globally syndicated. Some 82 authorities were interviewed on such topics as saving what’s left of our ancient forests, sustainable forest management, and recycling and alternative fibers.

Guest Speakers by Topic:

Dirk Bryant, Director, Global Forest Watch, World Resources Institute

Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, Senior Attorney, Natural Resources Defense Council

Randy Hayes, President, Rainforest Action Network

Thomas Lovejoy, Lead Environmental Specialist for Latin America and the Carribean, World Bank, Counselor to the Secretary for Biodiversity and Environmental affairs, Smithsonian Institute

Michael Marx, Executive Director, Forest Ethics

Jack Putz, Professor of Botany, University of Florida

Steve Gatewood, Executive Director, Society for Ecological Restoration, Wildlands Project

Herb Hammond, Forester, Forest Ecologist, Author, Silva Forest Foundation

Richard Hart, Oregon Coordinator, Forest Stewards Guild

Chris Maser, Independent Social-Environmental Sustainablity Consultant

Walter Smith, Western Regional Manager, SmartWood Program, Institute for Sustainable Forestry

Rolf Bell, Director of Development, Habitat for Humanity

Lynne Elizabeth, Board Member: Treasurer/Administrator , Architects/Designers/Planners for Social Responsibility, Editor, New Village Journal

Betsy Pettit , President, Building Science Consortium

Sami Yassa, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council, Instructor, U.C. Berkeley

John Anner, Executive Director, Independent Press Association

Susan Kinsella, Executive Director, Conservatree

Todd Larsen, Managing Director, Co-op America

Steve Lippman, Senior Program Manager - Environmental Program, Business for Social Responsibility

Todd Paglia , Director of Campaigns, Forest Ethics

Jason Grant, President and CEO, EcoTimber International

Wade Mosby, Senior Vice President, Collins Pine Company

Hank Cauley, Executive Director, Forest Stewardship Council

Richard Donovan, Director, SmartWood Program, Chief of Forestry, Rainforest Alliance

Kate Heaton, Senior Forestry Specialist, Natural Resources Defense Council

Robert Hrubes , Senior Vice President - Forest and Marine Conservation Programs, Scientific Certification Systems

Daniel Hall, Director of Forest Biodiversity Project, American Lands Alliance

Steve Holmer, Campaign Coordinator, American Lands Alliance

Catherine Mater, Vice President and CEO, Mater Engineering, She currently serves as an Economic Development Commissioner for the State of Oregon.

Danna Smith, Director of Programs, Dogwood Alliance

Katie Auman, Dogwood Alliance

Julia Butterfly Hill, Founder, Circle of Light Foundation

Jon Catton, Communications Director, Greater Yellowstone Coalition

Mark Donham, Co-founder, Regional Association of Concerned Environmentalist , Program Director, Heartwood

Jameson French, Director, Northland Forest Products,Inc.

Marston Gregory, building Environmental inspector and Consultant

Allen Hershkowitz, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council, board member, Recycled Paper Coalition

Susan Holmes, Senior Regional Representative, Sierra Club

Leda Huta, Resource Conservation Alliance

Cael Kendall, Architectural Sales Manager, EcoTimber Internationl

Mathew Koehler, Coordinator of Public Lands Project, Native Forest Network

Athan Manuel, Director, Arctic Wilderness Campaign, US PIRG

Joshua Martin, Coordinator, Indiana Forest Alliance

Jon McCarthy, Idaho Conservation League

Gary Moll, Vice-President, Urban Forest Center

Lois Norrgard, American Lands Alliance

Marshall Pecore, Forest Manager, Menominee Tribal Enterprises

Kevin Smith, Executive Director, New Castle County Habitat for Humanity

Susan Andrew, Ecologist, Southern Appalachian Forest Coalition

Susan Ash, Campaign Director, Oregon National Resource Council

Niel Lawrence, Forestry Project Director, Natural Resources Defense Council, NRDC

Martha Marks, President, Republicans for Environmental Protection

Andy Stahl, Executive Director, Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics

Klare Allen, Co-director and community organizer, roxbury Environmental Empowerment Project

Dave Anderson, Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests

Bruce Beeken, President, Co-Owner, Beeken/Parsons

Robert Bryan, Northeast regional standards coordinator., Forest Stewardship Council

Alys Campainge

Lori Capra, executive director, Habitat for Humanity

Michael Closson, Executive Director, Pacific Crest Biodiversity Project

Ned Daly, Consumer's Choice Council

Kevin Danaher, Co-Founder and Director of Public Education, Global Exchange

Jane Danowitz

Pam DiBona, Legislative Director, Environmental League of MA.

Jonathan Evans, Professor of Biology, University of the South

Larry Freilich, Sierra Club

Dana Harmon Charron, Director of Woodwise Program, Co-op America

Marty Hayden, Legislative Director, Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund

Dennis Hayes

Tim Hermach, Native Forest Council

John Hickey, Executive Director, Missouri Citizen Education Fund

Bill Hull, Founder and CEO, Hull Forest Products

Nels Johnson, Director of Conservation Programs, The Nature Conservancy, Pennsylvania

John Judis, Director, New Republic (DC)

Kalee Kreider, Director of Global Warming campaign, National Environment Trust

Tom Kruzen, Ozark Field Representative, MO Coalition for the Environment, Board Member, MO Heartwook

Daniel Lashof, Senior Scientist, Natural Resources Defense Council

Nathaniel Lawrence, Senior Attorney and Forestry Project Director, Natural Resources Defense Council

Foster Levy, Associate Professor Dept. of Biological sciences, East Tennesee State Univesity

Dennis Martinez, Forestry Consultant

Brian McNitt, Campaign Manager, Alaska Rainforest Campaign

Shelley Means, Program Associate, Racial and Environental Justice Program

Erik Olsen

Brian Paddock, Attorney and Forestry Committe Chair, Save Our Cumberland Mountains

Dan Phillips, Owner, Phoenix Commotion

Nigel Pickering, Senior Environmental Engineer, Charles River Watershed Association

James E. Quinn, President, JQuinn Company

Conan Smith, Michigan Environmental Council

Greg Wetstone, Director of Programs, Natural Resources Defense Council