Exotic woods and environmental impact

we have devised a lot of ways to justify our use of products that damage the environment. The more we know, the less excuses we have for our habits. I don’t think I could use the wood either if I saw the damage to the land and the disappearing of the trees in person. And now… I think I’ll add another personal commitment to my list. Pretty soon I’ll be living in a cave eating berries.

We have claimed ourselves as the “keeper of the planet”. We think we own it all, need it all, can use it all for our personal needs and wants. Soon, we shall be regretting our gluttony and abuse.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I’ve been playing with smaller projects recently, about which I can feel like I have less of an impact, but, yes, everything we do does have an impact.

I’m pretty happy to look to things that are grown sustainably, and in my region. Give that orchards are turned fairly regularly out here, I’m trying to figure out things I could use almond for, I’d love to figure out how to use Almond. There’s a moderate effort to get rid of some of the non-native Eucalyptus here in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m looking for an opportunity to get some; the particular species grown locally can be pretty warped, it’d mean making a pressure steamer to help it dry straight enough that it doesn’t tie itself in knots, but it can be a beautiful wood.

On the other hand, you have to weigh your use of exotic woods against some of the other impacts of your life and lifestyle on the world. If I take wood of somewhat questionable provenance and turn it into something that’s going to be used and re-used for a few generations, I think that’s worlds better than the same wood of questionable provenance ending up in something cheap and Ikea-ish at your local trendy furniture store.

-- Dan Lyke, Petaluma California, http://www.flutterby.net/User:DanLyke

Support your local sawmill.

-- http://www.woodsongsfurniture.com

Seems to me there is a trade off on everything.

An exotic wood to us is local to the native area.
We get pallets from the Phillippines made of mahogany, from SE Asia made of teak

If we iimpose our values on less developed countries we stifle their ability to earn a living. If a developer in Brazil is going to clear cut a forest why should we not utilize the rosewood?

In western civilization if two people fight and one kills the other it’s murder or manslaughter. In other parts of the world I’ve lived in it’s just a consequence of being in a fight.

There have been many species of all sorts of life that have died out over the millennia. Long before man came on this Earth. What was there to protect them? If they are gone did they need to be protected for us to use today? Did their demise make the Earth better or worse? Or just give a need to adapt?

Sustainable growth is needed because it satisfies our needs and desires at this time. But not because it will make the world better. Or keep the world from being worse off.

We have been in global warming since the last ice age. 50 years ago it was all the rage to say the next ice age was coming because there had been a series of years that were a little colder than usual.

If you choose not to use Cocabola that is your choice. I’d rather not waste it.
If Juan wants to chop down that tree to feed his family because he knows he can sell it to someone you are just not part of his marketing plan.

But, then again, you might be right!

-- No piece is cut too short. It was meant for a smaller project.

I’ve held off commenting on this forum because I didn’t quite know what I wanted to say. I will be the first to agree that the destruction of the tropical forests is a problem. Now, will not using the wood help. Yes, maybe. It’s like a man who was walking along the beach as the tide went out. He was throwing star fish back into the ocean. Another man saw what he was doing and commented that there was no use in doing that as it wouldn’t make any difference. The first man sailed another star fish into the sea and replied,”Well, it made a difference to that one.”

While this may be true and our concerns are valid. We as users of the wood won’t make a big difference in what goes on in Central and South America. Where this problem needs to be addressed is at the local level. The people there for the most part need income. As long as their economy is such that they are barely above poverty level, they will continue to operate on a subsistance level. It’s hard to be concerned with the envirionment if your belly is empty. In Africa, several nations set up game preserves and then hired the local hunters to protect them. Sort of like hireing the thief to guard the jewells. If a large logging company buys up the timber rights and provides jobs, the same thing applies. A nation that is poverty stricken will sell it’s natural reasources to the highest bidder with no concern for the environment. Until something helps these people, economies and governments to move higher up the ladder of self-actualization. The environment of their area will suffer. A better under standing of this process can be found by studying Abraham Maslov, The Hierarchy of Self-Actualization. I’ve noticed that being concerned with the environment is directly related to some things. The first is how well off you are financially. Bob Marshall, an early environmentalist, was indepentently wealthy, never married and had no children to think about for the future. The second is education. If we have a good education our thinking is usually above the subsistance level. The education also contributes to our financial situation. Seldom will you find people with poor education and a low standard of living who are worried about the environment.

So, will not using the wood help the rain forest. I doubt it. If we want to make a difference it needs to be done at the local level and with the economy. Those are my thoughts on this subject.

-- Thos. Angle

Here’s another take on the problem. Here in North America (and Europe I believe) there is the concept of sustainable woodforest management. For every tree they chop they replant two (or ten). This may just be done to satisfy government requirements, but it also makes the resource renewable in the long-term. The government can re-sell the logging rights to that woodstand in 50 years and get even more tax dollars.

I realize the political environment of most countries where exotic lumber is harvested will never “organize” a long-term vision for their natural resources. But we, the consumer of the wood, have very little impact on the growers/farmers who cut the tree, since they do it a) to clear land, and b) to get some supplimentary income. Many regions clear the land not by logging, but BURNING! Yes, it returns nutrients to the soil for a short-term boost, but from our Western perspective it seems a travesty.

Unless you are in the government, specifically foreign affairs, there is little you can personally do. Buying habbits don’t make much of an impact. If you feel truly strongly about the preservation of such wood resources, the only viable, effective option is to lobby your federal government to BAN the import of those woods as lumber, or even as finished products. That is the only way to curb the use of the wood. That would shrivel up the market for the wood.

Of course, there is nothing that we can do to stop the local farmer from clearing the trees to give his cattle some much-needed grazing space…

-- Dekker - http://www.WoodworkDetails.com/Blog/MNagy/

when I worked in Social Services I quickly learned that facilitating parenting programs did little to help a family that was struggling to put food on the table. And so the primary goals was to help the families to develop the skills needed to survive in a healthy and socially acceptable manner. While doing this, there were still very clear limits regarding the children involved that they had to live up to.

For me, those who “have” also have responsibility to help those who “have not”. It’s the old “give a fish vs teach to fish” scenario. We are one planet and one people.

Ultimately each of us has to decide how we want to live. At the end of the day can I look in the mirror and say that I lived the day with integrity and honour? Did I make this world a better place? I hope that every day, I can answer the questions with a “yes”.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I have no intention of starting a flame-war or anything of the sort. But, sawdust2, your reply bothers me. I will reply once here and you can reply if you like, and I will leave it at that. My comments are added in-line below.

> Seems to me there is a trade off on everything.
>
> An exotic wood to us is local to the native area.
> We get pallets from the Phillippines made of mahogany, from SE Asia made of teak
>
> If we iimpose our values on less developed countries we stifle their ability to earn a living. If a developer
> in Brazil is going to clear cut a forest why should we not utilize the rosewood?

The wood will not go to waste. My point is that the high demand that pushes the prices so high causes other trees to be cut just for the lumber market.

> In western civilization if two people fight and one kills the other it’s murder or manslaughter. In other parts of
> the world I’ve lived in it’s just a consequence of being in a fight.
>
> There have been many species of all sorts of life that have died out over the millennia. Long before man
> came on this Earth. What was there to protect them? If they are gone did they need to be protected for us to
> use today? Did their demise make the Earth better or worse? Or just give a need to adapt?

That was before modern humans. Dozens of species go extinct every day. That didn’t happen before Us except on very rare occasions. Even if you’re totally self-centered you should care about this because one of those species could have contained a unique chemical compound that could have been used to cure a disease. The globe is one big ecosystem, with everything intertwined. In the end those plants contribute to the pool of oxygen you breathe. And a rainforest produces many times more oxygen than a field of one species of tree or grain.

> Sustainable growth is needed because it satisfies our needs and desires at this time. But not because it
> will make the world better. Or keep the world from being worse off.

Actually it does keep the world from being worse off. It allows us to not have to harvest some of the old-growth preserves. Old growth is important for species diversity among other things.

> We have been in global warming since the last ice age. 50 years ago it was all the rage to say the next ice
> age was coming because there had been a series of years that were a little colder than usual.
>
> If you choose not to use Cocabola that is your choice. I’d rather not waste it.
> If Juan wants to chop down that tree to feed his family because he knows he can sell it to someone you are
> just not part of his marketing plan.
>
> But, then again, you might be right!

All of this thinking along the lines of, “one person or one tree won’t matter” is one of the reasons so many things in our capitalistic society have run amok. The government is only going to do so much. The corporations are only going to do what will make them another buck. What will we consumers do?

Ok. I’m done on the soap box.

-- johnjoiner

small potatoe … hand in the bucket of water theory

-- work from your heart and your spirit will live forever

I guess I’ll sorta dodge the question by saying that for me personally, I’m no master craftsman, I don’t do commission work or make my living from woodworking. For me that means I cannot justify buying exotic woods. I’m happy to work with cheaper domestic, sustainable materials.

Will I feel that way years from now if I ever get to that level of expertise? I cannot say. But I can’t judge those that do. I agree that one person CAN make a difference, especially when as a populous, we decide responsibly and one person acting becomes part of a larger movement. But on this particular subject I also believe it is the burning (at least when considering the Amazon) that is causing the vast majority of deforestation and loss of bio-diversity. Changing one cause will not effect the results of a second, and unrelated cause.

Consider me a fence straddler…

-- --==[ Pappy ]==--

Pappy, I can’t help laughing—I’m picturing your little avatar straddling a fence. :)

as for the debate. I’m always thrilled to hear people discuss an issue: that means that they are thinking about it! And no matter what side of the fence you are on (or on top of) you are making conscious decisions. And THAT is always a good thing!!! :)

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

I’ve purchased wood from a man in the Philadelphia area. His story is that he owns plantations in Costra Rica and that he plants and harvests his own woods. Here is his website for teak.

He also sells on eBay as Diamond.tropical.

Kevin’s story is he owns the land and plants the trees and he cuts the wood with his own sawmills and then ships containers of it to himself in Philadelphia. He also makes Teak furniture and Teak cutting boards etc. SO there is a sustained growth of tropical hardwoods that is available.

-- What happens in the workshop stays in the workshop. No wait that doesn't sound right. Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com †

Deb, thats the reason me pants are dropped – ever tried pulling up a pair of denim coveralls rubbing against all those splinters? :)

I agree. Debate and discussion of these kinds of issues always leads to a more conscious decision, regardless of what that decision may be.

-- --==[ Pappy ]==--

John has certainly made his point. And he has made his choice.
And he is perfectly justified in both.

Thos, and Dekker and Debbie each illustrate part of the diverse problems and concerns.

One person probably can make a change. but will two people make the change occur twice as fast? You may not appreciate the analogy but here goes. The largest multi-level marketing job in the world was Christianity. It started with one man who recruited 12 men. 1700 years later even all these millions of Christians cannot agree on who or what is correct or even how to be a good Christian. But the original 12 had one goal.

IMHO the ecosystem (for lack of a more precise term) that we live in is so diverse that we will never know if there is, or is not, some counteracting presence on the other side of the globe dissafecting the change you make on this side of the globe.

I applaud your desire to make that change and I relish that we live in cultures that allow us the freedom to make that choice. Or not.

-- No piece is cut too short. It was meant for a smaller project.

Sawdust, I applaud your conviction and comfort with your position and am not trying to dissuade you from them, however, I’ll have to disagree entirely with the relativity of your examples.

The economy of work principle says that, yes, two people can make something happen not only twice as fast but often even faster. When we are writing software to reduce the number of employees needed to perform a task, the economy of our improvement must be at least 1.65 times the number of employees to be reduced due to implicit gains from economy of work. Apply this to an issue that has global scale and this becomes that much more important. It is just as true when discussing the negative impact of one’s actions. Just because a feather weighs an ounce and an auto weighs a ton it doesn’t mean the feather weighs nothing at all. Enough feathers will equal the car’s weight, and no one feather in the pile can claim it is not contributing to that weight.

Christianity is a belief system. One based on spiritual principles and interpretations of often vague and sometimes even contradictory guidelines, and to compound it even further, it is founded on the shoulders of an even older religion (Judaism) whose principle method of instruction is allegory, which by its very nature is designed to be open to multiple interpretations. Given that, and add several thousand years for deviation to set in, it would be folly to assume all Christians could ever be cookie-cutter copies of one another or to even consider it as one belief system at all. Religions encourage diversity of thought because there is no proving or disproving any claim to spiritual “truth”; truth without proof.

Ecology, on the other hand is a science. The nature of science is to observe, predict the existence of facts based on those observations, observe again, re-evaluate previous predictions based on these new observations, project new facts, refine, observe, predict, and on and on. At the point the facts no longer contradict one another nor the observations, they coalesce into complete theories. This refinement widens to cover ever more diverse studies in science, and each time it does so without contradicting other validated facts and theories it gains more legitimacy. The test for legitimacy within any science is the conformity of fact – the opposite of your Christianity example.

Are sciences like ecology and climatology perfect? No. Do we know all there is about the interconnectedness of biological systems? Not by a long shot. But since at least the early 1970’s, the conformity of facts has steadily and consistently pointed to the critical role tropical rainforests play in global climatology, and the negative effects our development and resource consumption are having on those forests. Does that mean that woodworking with exotic woods is the number one cause? Of course not, and doing so is obviously an individual choice.

But a feather is still a feather, whether it’s oblivious to the rest of the bird or not…

-- --==[ Pappy ]==--

as a Life Guide, I help people make decisions based on their beliefs—not on what other people think or do, or on what might be… if you believe in something, and you act in a way that does not support this, then the result is an inner turmoil that you have created by your choices.
Living true to one’s self is about making choices that are following the inner beliefs and not choices that are made because of immediate gratification, or because they are easier to do than making the choice that is based on your true beliefs.

My job is to help people become aware of what their true beliefs are and to help them make choices accordingly.

Same applies here: what are your beliefs about the wood, about the environment, about the world…. your actions should reflect these beliefs. (And, of course, because we are human there are lots of grey areas.) All we can do, in the end, is make the best choices we can given the circumstances and enjoy life.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Holistic Resource Mangement Life Guide? I’ve wondered what a “Life Guide” did. Now I know. thanks Debbie It sounds like you are trying to instill common sense in your clients. Wouldn’t that have been easier when they were children? If their mother had stayed home and raised them? Old dogs DO have trouble with new tricks. Not trying to digress from the environmental issues here but I think this is related. How we raise our children has an effect on the envitronment.

-- Thos. Angle

the mother stayed home (or better put: a parent stayed home); the father (and mother) stayed involved….
both parents play an important role.. a vital role… yes, circumstances happen, but when possible, the “2 parent involvement” (whatever that looks like for the family) is preferred.

I have facilitated a zillion parenting programs and anger management programs and, of course, the goal was to make the difference before the problems were created ;)
But remember that they also were affected by their childhoods and their past experiences… sigh… we are only human.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

well said Debbie. Do the best you can with what you’ve got (but we should add – and do no harm to others)

The simple advice of buy(act) locally, think globally is a good idea – and while not practical for the 3rd world barely scraping by, those of us that can, or care to do the right, rather than easy or popular thing should. (and not lord it over people who don’t see things the same way.

I try to do everything as locally as possible, with regards to food (support your local farmers, and mom & pop establishments, but do I feel bad if my best choice was made overseas? No. If we stop buying the products we don’t want, eventually someone will get the picture. Marketers are in the business of selling what sells, finding more of what people are buying, less of what they aren’t.

All the talk of global warming is true, and unless we do something about it our children & their children will have to more severely deal with the problems of the planet we left them.

In the end, the planet will bounce back and be fine, it will overcome just about anything we can do to it… eventually. The question is, will we survive to see it – or will the planet become too inhospitible for us? What was fine for the dinosaurs would have been too hot for modern life as we know it, and they had millions of years, we’ve just had a drop in the bucket, timewise.

-- I am always doing what I cannot do yet, in order to learn how to do it. - Pablo Picasso -- http://blanchardcreative.etsy.com -- http://snbcreative.wordpress.com/

and.. “just because you can, doesn’t mean you have to”.. Yes Mother Nature will recover after the human species has killed itself off… but this doesn’t mean we “should” keep on destroying whatever we want.

I can’t control someone else; everyone has a right to their own beliefs and their own way of living. In the end, it still comes down to that face in the mirror. Am I living my life as honorable as I can and am I leaving this world in a better place because of my presence? That’s what drives my motivations.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

My wife pointed out this topic to me several, and it’s been bugging me ever since. Thanks a lot John! I am fortunate enough to do almost all of my work in domestic hardwoods, but I decided early on that if I was asked to use an exotic, I would insist that it be from a “sustainable” source. Now I have to consider whether that is good enough. Again, thanks a lot!

The argument that buying an exotic increases it’s value, thereby causing or encouraging someone to cut illegally, which in turn damages the environment seems like a stretch to me. You could condense that argument to say that in the case of exotic hardwoods, consumerism increases value which creates the opportunity for unethical actions. But wouldn’t that apply to any consumerism? If I buy a tank of gas, that reduces world supply and increases value, encouraging insane dictators to take over oil-rich countries and encouraging the US to drill in the Alaskan Wildlife Refuge (which could damage the environment). If I buy food, that reduces world supply and increases value, encouraging poverty-stricken nations to ship their food products here rather than feeding their own people, which in turn creates the opportunity for their people to choose to steal. And for that matter, doesn’t the simple fact that I own something valuable create the opportunity for someone to choose to steal it from me? Am I responsible for another’s unethical actions? If so, isn’t it unethical for me to have possessions to tempt someone? Should I stop buying altogether and take up residence in a cave in Debbie’s neighborhood (tempting – I hear the berries are good)?

We try to control the secondary and tertiary results of our actions to reduce our impact and to reduce the opportunity for unethical actions of others. We tell our government not to drill in the Alaskan Refuge – so far it’s worked. We told Saddam we wouldn’t buy his oil, so he just sold it to someone else and we bought it from them – that didn’t work. We set up tariffs and boycotts and embargoes and sanctions and regulations and sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t. In the end, we still can’t control whether someone else will be unethical for profit.

If a tree has financial value (because we are willing to pay for the lumber), someone has to cut it down and mill it and ship it to extract that value. It takes a lot of time to cut down a tree and cut it up in a useful way, even commercially. But if the tree has no financial value (because no one will buy it), and cattle and crops do have financial value, then some may be tempted to burn down large stands of trees to make room for their agriculture. And lighting that match doesn’t take much time at all. So wouldn’t buying the wood have the effect of slowing deforestation even if it was cut illegally? And if the financial value of the lumber is there, at some point people and companies are going to recognize the value of reforestation or plantation growing so there continues to be a product for them to harvest.

I don’t mean to say that we should buy exotic hardwood with no consideration for the consequences. We should do everything we can to make sure the wood comes from a sustainable source because that is the way our pursuit has the least impact on the planet – and the way that materials will remain available for us to use. But to refuse to use certified wood to discourage illegal cutting also discourages those individuals and companies that are already practicing responsible forest management and plantation growing – throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If responsible companies can’t make a profit producing certified lumber, they may turn to unethical means to get by.

One really amazing plantation success story can be found at http://www.tatf.com/. Investors actually own tropical individual hardwood trees on the plantation. The investor can choose to keep the lumber when the trees are harvested, or the plantation will sell them and send the investor a check. It seems like a great opportunity to invest in a solution instead of just boycotting the problem.

-- http://www.north40custom.com -- http://north40studios.etsy.com --

the optimist in me is confident that we are slowly becoming more ethical and conscientious about how we live. The pessimist says that we aren’t moving fast enough and that we justify a lot of choices that hurt others / our planet / ourselves.

Awareness is the key to making “good” choices towards positive change. Being aware of solutions (ways to help communities earn a living AND protect their environment at the same time helps us help others and in the end help ourselves as well) gives us the tools to benefit from resources while protecting them at the same time.

If we keep on doing what we’ve been doing we will end up with the same results – diminishing the resources available. I’m not a purist in regards to the environmental issue and I am guilty of a lot of “no-no’s” but (justification) I do make a lot of choices based on the impact it has on my world.

”I” am the only one who can make this world a better place because of my presence and my actions.

-- ~ Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Before anyone invests in Tropical American Tree Farms (TATF), please review the discussion provided by this link: http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=7823

This opportunity is not nearly as good as you might think from just reading TATF’s web site.

Be careful!!

Deanwins