How can you determine if wood is harvested ethically?

[Owen Lowe]

My rule of thumb is I don't worry about where it came from. It's already been harvested and some one will get it if I don't. But that's buying from dealers, individuals, etc. I'm not brokering with someone in Australia or the amazon who may be running out and cutting a tree tonight.

I’m going to pick on you, Brian. The message above is a perfect statement to address the amorphousness of ethics:

Do you feel the same about elephant ivory, Bengal tiger skins, eagle feathers, and the like? (Which, BTW, are all resources just as “renewable†as trees.) The tusk is already cut, the tiger killed, the eagle plucked, the tree felled; if I don’t get it someone else will.

In my view, this only fosters the demand and further harvesting. My wood (or ivory, skin, feather) dealer sells his stock of domestic or imported product, orders more from his supplier, who orders more from his source, etc. The order trickles back to the local harvester who has incentive ($) to fill the order. No matter what product we’re talking about, it’s supply and demand. Your act of buying it reinforces the demand which leads to further poaching.

Again, Brian, I’m just picking on the one statement. It stuck in my craw and I didn’t want it to go unaddressed.

 

[hockenbery]

The tusk is already cut, the tiger killed, the eagle plucked, the tree felled; if I don’t get it someone else will. In my view, this only fosters the demand and further harvesting. My wood (or ivory, skin, feather) dealer sells his stock of domestic or imported product, orders more from his supplier, who orders more from his source, etc. The order trickles back to the local harvester who has incentive ($) to fill the order. No matter what product we’re talking about, it’s supply and demand. Your act of buying it reinforces the demand which leads to further poaching.

Owen,

Nice way to to point out that seemingly harmless acts add up!

It caused me to focus on what I do.

Thanks.

Al

 

[Brian McInturff]

Owen,
I knew when I typed it someone would comment on it. Doesn't change anything. I do own some ivory from my time I spent in Alaska. Don't have a clue how it was harvested. Same with all the wood I buy. What if the wood I buy IS harvested correctly? Should I do without because it "may" have been by illegal means? How about those diamonds? Or prescription drugs that are tested on animals through the R&D? Or if someone flushes them into the sewer? My point is that everything we do has an impact on someone. I'm not going to stop buying wood for fear it may have been harvested illegally, nor am I going to stop buying diamonds. I don't buy ivory but have bought some antlers(gave up hunting when I left Alaska). And I don't flush my pills down the toilet(it is affecting our water supply, whole different topic).
I love reading the different philosophical views on this subject. Very interesting.

 

[hockenbery]

Sort of like the mercury poisoning of our Florida lakes.
We don't restrict coal burning because some of the mercury floats over from Mexico.

No matter that it is additive process. We just advise people not to eat fish more than once a week....
When it gets higher I guess they make it once a month.

 

[Sergio Villa]

I believe it is impossible to know the exact origin of exotic wood, but the resposability must be shared between the end user, the intermediaries and the big logger with buldozzers and certainly not the small guy that cut too survive even if he cuts under a big guy.
One example: I live in North East were the woods, although not healty in my opinion, regrew since the mid nineteen century when almost all the trees were cut for coal to be used in the iron industry. So there is fair amount of hard wood available.
Close to me there is a big hardwood mill that serves mainly the building industry and also the finish carpenters of that industry. I go there to get the scrap and the rippings that otherwise would be houled to Pennsylvania to make compost. Another strange thing by the way. One day I got hundreds of feet of rippings of purpleheart wood leaving the most of it. The small pick up I had was ful. These rippings were about nine to ten feet long and two to two and a half inches wide by one inch thick. Where all the planks of purpleheart wood that were trimmed went? Not in pencils, but in flooring and trim work in some house being built in the area. Who bears the responsibility for the cutting of those trees?

 

[Hu Lowery]

a fine can of worms

Ethics do vary with the time, place, and people. When every scrap of old growth cypress that could be found in Louisiana was harvested in the teens and twenties nobody considered it unethical. We were an emerging country and we needed to cut the timber. One mill alone cut a quarter million feet of cypress a day, the video didn't specify what type of feet they were talking about, board feet I presume. I have read some of those trees were standing when Christ was born. We will never see cypress trees that old again in Louisiana without special protections for a dozen lifetimes.

Now we tell the emerging and struggling countries it is wrong to cut their forests down. Just how is it different than when we cut our forests down? We are maybe wiser now but they are in the same boat now that we were in then!

The urban loggers are interesting. I'd bet dollars to donuts that they sometimes harvest species that are illegal to harvest. Legally they should go to the dump and be buried or burned. When the trees have to come down anyway which is more ethical? Well when push comes to shove even when it is an act of wastefulness it is more ethical to obey the law.

Wood poaching is almost universally ignored and to make things more confusing sellers routinely rename species that can legally be harvested as the species they are substituting for. Rosewood is a fine example. True rosewood is illegal. Several species marketed as rosewood are perfectly legal. I buy legal ebony and ivory, or did when I worked with pool cues.

One of my suppliers was raided by the fed's, shop and home. They confiscated about fifty thousand or so worth of Cuban cigars and hundreds of pounds of ivory. They never proved one scrap of that ivory was illegal but he never got any of it back either. Fact is we can't use illegal ivory in pool cues, it has to age a few decades to be stable enough for use. Illegal ivory is too green to use.

To get back to wood, if it is illegal to use it is also unethical simply because it is unethical to break the law. However if a tree or trees are coming down regardless is it more ethical to waste them or use them?

I have been looking at a cypress snag on public acreage for years. The wood of the tree is twisted like a barberpole. Unlike a tree that a vine has grown around and still has the bark growing straight up, the bark on this tree spirals. It stands there dead and rotting away. So far it hasn't fallen. It is one of my strongest temptations because the most beautifully figured warm wood I have ever seen came out of a cypress just like it.

I have just enough ethics that I won't poach the tree, not enough that I haven't looked at it and considered the logistics of doing it every time I passed by for the last six or eight years. To make matters a little tougher for the good guy sitting on my right shoulder, the guy on my left shoulder reminds me that somebody will poach it after it falls just because of it's value as a cypress that big without knowing how special that one is. I'll never steal that tree but the temptation is always there.

Hu

 

[Bill Boehme]

Hu, we're the poorer for every species of plant and animal that we eradicate from existence (OK, maybe most -- I certainly wouldn't miss mosquitoes and fire ants).

People were stupid once and thought that plants, animals, and natural resources were all from a never ending supply. It's too late to undo what has been done, but is that justification to act stupid forever? Is a short term gain worth more than a long term problem by frittering away what little resources may exist somewhere. The problem that you mentioned in emerging parts of the world that are resource poor are indeed very serious and answers ared not easy, but it seems like nobody has ever seriously faced the long term problems -- it has always been the easy solution of meeting the immediate needs at the expense of doing nothing to address the problems of the future. We would like for our children and grandchildren to have and enjoy what we have experienced, but maybe they will just read about elephants in books and think of them the same way that we think of unicorns.

 

[Hu Lowery]

you are absolutely right

Hu, we're the poorer for every species of plant and animal that we eradicate from existence (OK, maybe most -- I certainly wouldn't miss mosquitoes and fire ants).

People were stupid once and thought that plants, animals, and natural resources were all from a never ending supply. It's too late to undo what has been done, but is that justification to act stupid forever? Is a short term gain worth more than a long term problem by frittering away what little resources may exist somewhere. The problem that you mentioned in emerging parts of the world that are resource poor are indeed very serious and answers ared not easy, but it seems like nobody has ever seriously faced the long term problems -- it has always been the easy solution of meeting the immediate needs at the expense of doing nothing to address the problems of the future. We would like for our children and grandchildren to have and enjoy what we have experienced, but maybe they will just read about elephants in books and think of them the same way that we think of unicorns.

Bill,

Other than I could add a dozen or so other things that could have disappeared, you are absolutely right, being wrong before doesn't make it right to be wrong now. I was just pointing out that our ethics have changed as our perspective changed. We killed quite a few whales too, and fault the Japanese for their so called hunts for research now when I believe it is about 99% of the whale meat that hits the Japanese markets. I never used any of the few ounces of ivory I bought even though a quarter ounce of ivory inlay would have added several hundred dollars to the selling price of a cue. I see both sides of the debate a little too well.

When we try to define ethics for everyone we are totally at a loss, we can't even define human nature. That has always been a weakness of those from the US, probably from the western world. We didn't and don't recognize that highly moral people by their own lights can behave far differently than what we consider moral.

When purchasing wood we either have to completely ignore species that we know have a significant amount of poaching involved or accept that there is some risk of buying poached wood. In Africa game poachers are hunted like other varmints, shot on sight some places. It can be just as lucrative to poach wood and far safer. Plus I suspect it is easier to stalk down a tree than an animal that roams a wide area.

I like the idea of using my native woods for turning so I have no ethical issues with my actions. Others may question the ethics of cutting down a healthy tree to turn. I am very selective as to what I will cut but I'm not going to restrict myself to the level of not cutting down any healthy tree of any type.

Back in 1973 I built a shop. I carefully positioned it parallel to the property line so I could extend it back as much as several hundred feet as the business grew. I never could bring myself to expand, there was an oak about eight feet diameter at breast high in my way. I sold the shop and the tree didn't last a year. That didn't mean the new owner was less ethical than I was, he had a different perspective.

Hu

 

[Dr. Bob]

Beyond the Shadows of the Pines.....the "Big Forty"

From a book by Mert Cowley, Chetek, Wisconsin. (mertcowley.com)

"They were four hundred years old, two hundred feet tall, and eight to ten feet across the butt. They towered high above their neighbor, and dwarfed everything around. They grew in stands so dense and thick that life on the forest floor lived in darkness. It has been said that, "sight of them takes the breath away." This was the "Land of the Pinery," the "Land of the Kings'," the "Land of the Great White Pines": a forest like none before and like none since. Nothing like it would ever be seen again."

from the chapter titled "Cruisers"----"Many times the boundary lines ended up being little more than a formality. The company would buy a cruised forty, send the loggers in, and their forty and every forty on its sides would be logged off and the company would move on. This practice became known as logging a "big forty"."

I grew up near Wausau, Wisconsin and growing up in the 50s and 60s, there were still a number of large lumber baron mansions in town. It was probably the early 80s when I visited my sister who was renting part of one as an apartment. It was a five story mansion, and there were 15 different rooms
on the lower floors which were all paneled and floored with a different kind of wood. It was right on the Wisconsin River and has since been razed and a bank has replaced it.

Like others have mentioned, I also get all of my wood from North America.
Some is still from the family farm DNR Forest Management program. I have contacts with 7 or 8 loggers and sawyers who save burls for me. Everyone of them has said, "you don't know how many of these we have just left in the woods through the years." I am fortunate enough to have more than half of the loggers just want to swap for bowls and other turnings.

We also occasionally get "firewood lots" from the city of Colorado Springs......."urban lumber." We have to outbid the real firewood guys who will bid pretty high as there are very little other hardwoods available here.

Odie-----interesting thread. It made me remember the "big forty" story
in Mert's book which I found on one of my hunting and gathering forays at a gas station store in the northlands of Wisconsin near Phillips, WI. Mert's book does have many great old photos form the 1880s thru 1900s logging era.

I suspect that there are connections between the ethics of the "big lumber" stories and all of the other "big" industries (oil, steel, pharmacy, banking/finance etc.) but I don't pretend to know much about those other ones. Not much help here in evaluating the "ethics" of the current situation with the rain forests and the exotic woods, but an interesting (and believable) story from our past.

Dr. Bob Gibbs, Monument, Colorado........#30755

 

[odie]

Dr. Bob.......yes, indeed, it is!

I've found a lot of very interesting input to this thread......thanks to all who have contributed.

ooc

 

[Gretch Flo]

thread

Glad I nudged you Odie, Gretch

 

[JeffSmith]

There's another aspect to this subject that I haven't seen discussed. Poaching exotics isn't the only problem. Poaching instrument grade Big leaf Maple here in the Pacific Northwest is a problem as well. You can read an article here -
The stolen timber either gets sold to instrument makers here or in Asia - the not quite as figured pieces sometimes wind up in firewood lots being split and sold as cordwood. The wood comes from private lands, public lands, state or national forests - they don't care.
It may be a renewable resource, but it takes 75 - 100 years to renew...

 

[oturn]

Timber Thieves Threaten California’s Redwood Giants

Poaching burls from standing 1000 year old trees. Not a pretty site.
It's happening in our backyard...

http://nyti.ms/1n6CCLW
OR
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/04/timber-thieves-threaten-californias-redwood-giants/

 

[KellyDunn]

OK, so I read every post. Before I get to ethics. Mark Mandell was right on in that most deforestion in the amazon is slash and burn farming. I have no idea if any of the wood makes it to market. One thing that was hinted at but not stated. There are more acres of managed timberland worldwide than ever before. Some of these companies are huge international firms. They have very long term goals. Here on the big Island thousands of acres of former sugar cane land have been planted with a fast growing eucalypt. I think its been under twenty years and they are now being harvested and sent to Japan. I have not asked if they are being replanted. I also have no idea if forests were there before sugar. Private land owners can legally clearcut if they wish. There are no more Koa forests. Some landowners are planting. They have to keep the cows out for I think seven years. So thats seven years of no grazing for a crop that will not be ready in the owners lifetime. When I was a kid in South Carolina I used to hunt in pine forest all planted in rows. One time when my dad and I were asking permission to hunt I asked the fellow about it. He said they were planted when he was young by his dad, and he did not need the money but figured it would be ready for his son to sell. He said it would make prime lumber. Now thats a long term thinker. That in general is not the case in Hawaii. As has been stated if someone has the cash and wants something someone will get that something for the cash. I work with some very rare woods when I can get them. I did get a small chunk of an endangered wood. It had been handed down from turner to turner for so long that when I made a call about it and gave the lineage that I knew was informed it was probably OK to have as it was gotten before the endagered specie act. But was told I could not sell anything made from it. And the one collector I made a 3 inch bowl out of it, I was told if the collection ever went on tour I would would need several permits. Gotten in order, for the piece to not get confiscated. I made my wife a two inch bowl. To my knowledge no money ever changed hands over that knarly piece of wood. And I dont go looking for endagered woods. I do know a couple guys that will get anywood I want for a price. So far the very few calls about rare woods are from landowners with standing dead trees. So rot and big splits. Take sandalwood. I have had it offered two times. Both from standing dead trees. Its rare not endangered. Kauila. Has two species. One is endangered. Been also offered to me twice(non endangered) Both from standing dead trees. I get offered wood from a couple shady guys. I got a call yesterday. One of the woods I actually wanted but did not want to do biz with the guy so told him no thanks. Nothing rare mind you but its where he may have gotten the wood that bothers me. He talks a good story about how he got it. But I flat dont trust him. So who do you do biz with? Thats your personal ethical question that only you in any given circumstance can answer.