
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, August 28, 1993                   TAG: 9310280307
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A9   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: JOHN MUENCH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Long

TIMBER HARVESTING FOR JOBS - AND THE ENVIRONMENT

THE PAGES of the Roanoke Times & World-News in July carried several items on timber, which, read individually, probably provoked little concern among the general readership. But had these articles been printed together and put into the context of the economy of Western Virginia, they might have led more thoughtful readers to ideas of opportunities for environmental improvement and new jobs for our region.

The unintended series began with an article on President Clinton's announcement of reduced timber harvesting in the old-growth federal forests in the Pacific Northwest. A later article told of reduced harvesting in the rain forests of Canada's Coastal British Columbia. Since Canada accounts for almost 30 percent of the fir, pine and other softwood lumber consumed in the United States, consumers here will be affected by reductions in supplies from that country. The importance of timber availability to home-building costs was described in a letter on the editorial page from a Roanoke area builder. Then there was an item about the Fifth and Sixth planning districts deciding not to take a position on proposed reductions in timber harvests from the George Washington and Thomas Jefferson national forests.

Many people who think of themselves as environmentalists will cheer any decision to reduce the harvesting of timber anywhere. But the importance of forest products to the environment and the economy, as well as to our material welfare, is too often underestimated, misunderstood or ignored. Reductions in timber availability in western North America, for reasons of biodiversity, recreation or whatever, present opportunities elsewhere to contribute to a better global environment, as well as opportunities for much-needed jobs in non-urban places like Western Virginia.

An American can hardly live through a day without frequent use of wood and wood-based products, be they a house, furniture, paper, toothpaste, rayon fabrics, cosmetics or a multitude of other consumer and industrial products. Supplying those uses, the tonnage of wood processed today by manufacturers in the United States accounts for 47 percent of all industrial raw materials used, almost as much as the combined tonnage of steel and all other metals, cement products and plastics. Because the processing of wood products requires less energy than most other products, and because the lumber and wood-products industry uses so much energy fueled from sawdust and other manufacturing residues, its consumption of energy is only 4 percent of the net energy consumed in the manufacture of all industrial raw materials. In fact, many forest- industry plants are self-sufficient for their energy needs and are able to sell their surplus energy to the public-power grids, thus reducing the use of depletable fossil fuels.

When it comes to supplying most material needs of humans, our choice is either to cut a tree or dig a hole. Forests can be replanted. Other materials cannot be replenished and their processing is more energy-intensive and, thus, more polluting to the environment.

Sixty-five percent of the 20-county area being studied by the Blue Ridge Economic Development Commission is in timberland of commercial capability. That does not include areas on public lands set aside in parks, congressionally designated wilderness and the Blue Ridge Parkway, where timber harvesting is prohibited by statute or regulation. The federal government controls 26 percent of that timberland, most of which is in the George Washington and Thomas Jefferson national forests. On all ownership classes, the growth rate of timber exceeds harvest rates. A result of this has been a 44 percent increase in timber-growing stock volumes in the Blue Ridge region between 1976 and 1992.

Those who remember what these hills looked like 60 years ago can attest to the recovery of their forest mantle. That recovery is, to a large extent, a product of years of improved forest protection from fire, insects and disease. To some lesser extent, it is also a product of improved forest management, particularly on the federal and forest-industry lands, where management is in the hands of professional foresters. But on all lands, we are still not far beyond the hunting-and-gathering stage for our wood needs. The ability of foresters to obtain greater productivity of timber and accompanying benefits from the land by applying the fruits of our research, as we have done in agriculture, has hardly been tested.

We could contribute to a better global environment by expanding the production of renewable and relatively pollution-free industrial raw materials from all forest ownerships in the Blue Ridge region, including the national forests. That would also promote the new opportunities for economic development created here by shortages and political curtailments of timber supplies in the Pacific Northwest, the tropical rain forests and elsewhere in the world. The unrelenting and growing demands for materials worldwide will have to be supplied from somewhere, so why not from here?

If we are to take to heart the slogan seen on bumper stickers that says, "Think Globally, Act Locally," we should be trying to expand, not restrict, the growth and harvests of timber from the national forests and other ownerships in the Blue Ridge region. Or should job opportunities here yield to NIMBYism, while any environmental problems in timber harvesting, real or perceived, are exported to other places that may be less able to deal with them?

John Muench of Blacksburg is a senior research scientist with Virginia Tech's College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources.

by CNB