I would like to raise two points that seem to be missing in most discussion of sustainable forestry, and foresters unfortunate acceptance of current "ecological" thought. The term "Sustainability" should only be applied to those things that both can be done forever, given the current climatic regime, and which are associated with things that support the maintenance of this climatic regime.

1) Any forest manipulation that contributes to the reduction of the use of non-renewable energy and materials is sustainable. It is important to point out that there is almost no kind of act that will render an area unable to be colonized by forest given a few years for stand establishment. The only effect most damaging acts have is to reduce the rate of productivity rather than denial of the site to trees and other forest dwellers.
2) The second and less obvious part of the problem is the increasingly important two part connection of most public forest to the human population maintenance system, and degradation of the global climate maintenance system. This statement does not mean that humans are bad. It does involve the problem of human energy consumption and the resulting pollution. The two part problem involves:

* The provision of recreation, water, and materials to people residing in high concentrations near the coastal regions of this planet, and
* The emission of, or encouragement of emission of, CO2 from non-renewable sources in the production of forest products, or use of the forest for other uses.

The National Academy of Sciences, in their publication Issues in Science and Technology in the summer 1996 issue, published an article entitled Coasts in Crisis. It points out that there is a strong global trend for humans to move to the coast of all regions. This trend results in the loss of irreplaceable breeding habitat. 70% of all mangrove swamps have already been destroyed world wide. This trend can not and must not continue. We must work to find ways to help support the human population in areas over 200 miles from ocean coastlines.

Forests will continue to occupy those areas not disturbed by constant human use and should be managed for the renewable energy and materials they can produce. The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) declares that global warming is a fact and has identified that the northeastern portion of North America is a major carbon uptake zone and contributes to lessening the effects of our CO2 emissions on global warming.

The connection of forest product development and use to damage to the global climate maintenance system may be even harder to accept, but is no less real. Forest product use, which is incorporated into frivolous use like second home construction and embellishment of extravagant establishments, is involved in unsustainable uses. Forest product marketing which relies on the use of cheap non-renewable energy for the development of value is also unsustainable. Unfortunately, most primary and secondary processing of wood is now done using non-renewable energy. However, this need not be the case. Most "Certified" forest management is based on moving the product wherever it has to go to be marketable. So while the forestry may guarantee that the trees will always be there, the marketing contributes to the degradation of the climate maintenance system which can cause their demise. This should be a signal to such a "Certified" entity that it must actively seek those processing systems that use the harvesting waste to power the harvesting systems, and it must continually develop local users and uses for the material removed. I have seen little effort or understanding of this need in the discussion of "Certification of Sustainability."

The non-use advocated by "environmental advocates" is not an option either. The USGCRP also mentions that they are concerned that the uptake of CO2 by the NE US forest will decline as that forest matures. Only careful management of both harvesting and use of the products from the forest can help to maintain the present rate of CO2 recovery. There is no other manageable long term terrestrial CO2 uptake system to compare with our forest!

Foresters must be able to respond to opportunities both in the market and in the biology of individual stands is still quite limited. A ten to twenty year cutting cycle has to pass up many opportunities in optimizing stand performance and recovery of mortality (that could make sure that the carbon in the biomass is recycled and reduces our use of fossil fuels.)  Most forest management performance would be impossible without a significant degree of subsidy of harvesting revenues by the public funds which must pay most of the bills. The fact that most of us can not be compensated for the public values of water collection, CO2 recovery, storm water runoff control, wildlife habitat, and aesthetics (public use of forest and parks) is a major problem. The challenges to us all involve:
* accurate communication with ourselves and the public,
* the development of harvesting crews that can operate correctly and fairly with a minimum of supervision, and
* finding ways to fairly compensate normal landowners for both the tangible products from the forest, and those intangibles which we all provide but can not be paid to produce.

Alan C. Page, Ph.D.

March 18, 2007

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