4/16/10 CRITICAL ISSUES IN FORESTRY

A BLUSTERY, CHANGEABLE DAY
ASPEN HAVE BEEN FLOWERIG FOR WEEKS
YOUNG ASPEN LEAVES

Friday, 7:45 AM. 42 degrees, wind WNW, at times blustery. The channel is choppy, the sky somewhat overcast with black clouds but clearing rapidly. The barometer predicts sunny skies.
Yesterdays “Critical Issues In Forestry” conference, sponsored by the Bayfield County Economic Development Council, was excellent. There were speakers from state, county, and tribal forests, and from loggers, paper mills, power plants and private forest holdings. Topics ranged from invasive species to biomass production and industrial uses of wood products. Generation of power from biomass was a major topic. There was much discussion of the economic aspects of forestry production and products in a down market.
I was struck again by the complexity of natural resource issues and by the influence of long term social and economic policies, and came away with the sinking feeling that far too many individuals, particularly politicians, who know nothing about the issues, have had far too much control over them.
For instance, it is very clear from the data that natu ral resource biomass has little chance of ever producing more than a small fraction of our energy needs, yet government policies and subsidies are giving it far more credence and influence in the marketplace than it deserves. This pushes up prices for raw materials and creates unwarranted competition with higher value products such as furniture, building materials and paper products. These value-added products create the best uses of materials and the highest paying jobs. We are being pushed to denude and degrade our forests in order to compete with clean coal and natural gas, which are plentiful and cheap native sources of energy.
It is also clear that the markets for natural resources are worldwide, as are the multinational companies which produce products such as paper and building materials. There is a fine line between the market determining the prices and uses of raw materials, and the long term health of the resource base. Natural resources are as much or more influenced by national and worldwide economic health as are other sectors of an integrated economy. In the final analysis, an educated public and political process is the only hope of economic and natural resource sustainability in a free market, democratic republic, and in my view command and control economies, such as China and Russia, have been and remain the ultimate worst case scenarios for natural resource sustainability.
The aspens have been beautiful this spring, flowering for many weeks, and now in the young leaf stage.