assessment of sustainability of our forests

Southern Forest Resource Assessment

 Below is the original wording of one of the preliminary questions and public suggestions or concerns submitted about it--for details see our Public Input or Methods pages
 
 

"How might new technologies influence timber harvesting and conditions of forests?"
  1. Fully consider the impacts of the rapidly growing industry of chip mills.
  2. The idea that chip mills are an additional source of wood utilization is wrong Chipping, the conversion of round pulpwood to chips used to be done on site a pulp mills. Now chipping is done at satellite locations.
  3. The current number of chip mills, pulp mills and chip board facilities operating in the region, their individual and cumulative capacities and the cumulative acres of forests consumed annually to feed them. The trend in the construction of new facilities in the region (how many have been constructed over the last 15 years)?
  4. Increased mechanization and employee downsizing.
  5. Do different types of processing facilities (chip mills vs. saw mills) facilitate different forestry practices?
  6. How does the increased use of smaller diameter trees affect rotations?
  7. Modern technology (i.e., wood chipping) has enabled the timber industry to use species and types of hardwood trees previously not used. Woody debris decreases erosion, provides habitat for different species and, when left on the ground, returns important nutrients to the soil. To what degree do chip mills decrease woody debris on logging sites? What are the ecological effects of the increased use of nonconventional tree species?
  8. Include the impact of increased clearcutting and pine conversions to supply the wood chipping industry in the assessment.
  9. American Whitewater strongly supports a moratorium on new chip mill production during the study period; thorough analysis of the impacts that chip mill proliferation is and will continue to have on recreation benefits provided by a healthy and well managed forest ecosystems; thorough evaluation of the impact that the chip mill industry will have on water quality, and habitat for local plant and animal species; thorough analysis of long range economic impacts that the chip mill industry will have in the southeast as a result of massive cutting on private and public lands.
  10. The birds, bays, plants, soils, all of these are affected by clearcutting and mill chipping, the soil too.
  11. I believe that it's critical that the agencies address that we need to protect the Southern Forests. Forests provide clean drinking water, habitat for hunting and fishing, canoeing and camping, and improve the quality of life for families throughout the South. Corporations must not build any new chip mills until we have more information about their impact on forests and have adequate safeguards in place for the forests.
  12. The Assessment should reflect the development of new technologies in timber harvesting since the cross cut saw was used over 200 years ago. It should also take into account the driving forces behind technological development, i.e. development of timber harvesting equipment with relatively low environmental impact, new sawmill technologies utilize lasers and computer analysis.
  13. Considering the variety of market opportunities including lumber, flooring, furniture, molding, wood chips, and other forest products, what are the current and potential future impacts of harvesting activities on the health and sustainability of forests?
  14. This regionwide assessment of the impacts of chip mills in the Southeast will tremendously effect the future of this region and this nation.
  15. We need to do selection management. We need the most efficient milling technologies available so we waste as little as possible from each log. We should ban wood chipping.
  16. We will not soon, I suspect, be able to counter the industrial practices of fiber production that exist on private lands in the South, but we do not have to follow that model on our public lands.
  17. We feel the USFS must evaluate the community impacts of forest uses (especially by extractive industries like chip mills) upon forest sustainability.
  18. No new hardwood chip mills should not be licensed in the South.
  19. We think that the proliferation of chip mills has resulted in an overly-aggressive harvesting of immature forests in the Calcasieu River Basin.
  20. 100 scientists urged that agencies work in concert with state and local interests to undertake a study to quantify the impact of chip mill proliferation. The threats outlined included adverse impacts to threatened and endangered species, neotropical migrant birds, and terrestrial and aquatic wildlife and their habitats. The number of times a forest can be harvested by new techniques without severely depleting the system's ability to grow more trees is unknown and cannot be determined in 2 years. How long will it take for such complex systems to be restored (if they ever can be), and how will logging industries and subsequent changes impact the functioning of the myriad of forest ecosystems in the southeast?
  21. The late 1980's chip mills entire capacity was required to chip the hardwood which was formerly wasted in the process of site preparation. This market provided the land owner which additional revenue and also saved $100+ per acre in site preparation. If the hardwood was burned on site no one complained (except for foresters) but if you put it on a truck and hauled it to a chip mill then there was a great deal of public criticism. Assessment needs to recognize the benefit these mills bring to the landowners in terms of marketing a previously unused product and reducing their site preparation costs.
  22. I believe the chip mills have been getting a lot of bad press. Nobody seems to recognize that they have provided a market for hardwood fiber.
  23. As processing technology develops we are cutting smaller material and rotations are very short. We utilize every part of the tree, leaving nothing in the forest. I believe that this has contributed to growth declines.
  24. Because the ecological effects of accelerated logging may prove serious on a region-wide basis, we question whether current forest productivity can be sustained to support widespread proliferation of high-capacity, satellite chip mills.
  25. Timber harvesting has severely fragmented bottomland hardwoods throughout the South.
  26. Investigation of potential impacts should include indirect and cumulative effects on fish and wildlife resources resulting from any projected increase in short-rotation silviculture to supply chip mills (and concomitant loss of sawtimber stands).
  27. How might new technologies influence timber harvesting and the ecological sustainability of forest ecosystems/?
  28. Efforts of forest products companies to increase efficiency in the production of wood products will also impact forestry as less waste in the production process will reduce the demand on harvests.
  29. Recycling and the growing trend for municipalities, as well as local governments, to initiate mandatory requirement for the recycling of all applicable materials along with the paper industry goal of recovering 45% of all paper products will also impact the demand for wood fiber from our forests. The South leads our nation in intensive Forest Management. The recent advances in increasing timber volume are only the beginning in what can be done to relieve pressures on certain forests that can be managed for their special qualities and values.
  30. It is our understanding that wood being chipped is from privately-owned land and is being sold by the owner for economic reasons. We do not espouse prohibiting the use of this wood-processing technology nor the application of onerous regulations affecting its economic viability for the purpose curtailing it as a timber marketing option.
  31. The study lacks a thorough evaluation of the full range of ecological impacts associated with chip mills.
  32. The economic benefits of chip mills must be looked at in the context of a more inclusive community health concept. Intact forests involving nutrient cycling and waste removal may store large amounts of the terrestrial carbon.
  33. Increasing harvests of our forests by industrial methods pose a serious threat to the long term health of our forests. It is not too far fetched to say that the survival of the forest we know today is in jeopardy.
  34. Because of the absence of state regulation to halt or slow overharvesting in the south, will the introduction of new markets, such as additional chip mills, accelerate depletion and fragmentation of southern forest resources, creating negative economic and environmental impacts, long before any safeguards could be implemented?
  35. How long will high yield, timber extraction practices of the chip mills last in the South?
  36. What is the impact of overlapping sourcing areas of chip mills?
  37. What would be the impact of biomass burners?
  38. Place a moratorium on chip mills and wood processing facilities until the completion of the North Carolina Chip Mill Assessment Study and the Southern Forest Resource Assessment.
  39. What is the projected long-term effect of increased timber harvesting for chip mills on existing hardwood dependent businesses?
  40. Given the tremendous public concern over increased levels of woodchip production, additional data collection on land management practices in woodchip mill source areas would also be helpful.
  41. The impact of conversion to "chip mill" processing techniques on rates of timber harvest, selection of timber management regimes, and the condition, both present and projected, of southeastern forests.
  42. Smith, Danna, Chipping Forests & Jobs: A Report on the Economic and Environmental Impacts of Chip Mills in the Southeast, (Dogwood Alliance and Native Forest Network, August 1997) and all sources cited therein.
  43. What is the adjusted growth to removal ratio for the region when only the growth on available forestland is considered? How much forest is actually available to the forest industry? How much forest is unavailable because of protected status, landowner attitudes, steep slopes (high cost of harvest), low productivity, distance from mills, etc.?
  44. New technologies seem to increase the capabilities of harvesting so that more forest will disappear faster. It fosters the continuance of clearcutting for pulp. We will have more regenerating forests and fewer habitats for creatures that need mature forests. We have to consider more than money in management of our forests.
  45. Not only the environmental quality is suffering, but human health is also meritably being affected. Higher levels of asthma and lung disease accompany practices such as those employed by industrial chip mills.
  46. Consider the new technologies of chip mills. OSB, MDF, and engineered lumber, all of which encourage clearcutting and plantations, vs. technologies that use fiber made from recycled materials, agricultural residues and agricultural crops such as kenaf and industrial hemp.
  47. The vast majority of chip mills supply paper mills in southern states. Most of these paper mills have been operating for many years and have always obtained their wood supply from the Southern forest. With changes in transportation patterns, chip mills have become the more efficient means of getting trees to the paper mill. Since chip mills themselves are not end users of the wood they process, they have had little effect on the amount of clearcutting or total wood consumption.
  48. Markets for timber must be kept healthy and strong to keep forests in forest cover.
  49. Please do something about the chip mills in Georgia that are destroying the piedmont and coastal forests plus the Appalachian forests of north GA. They are creating 115,000 acres of clear-cuts every year! Please stop this horrible carnage.
  50. There are innovative ways of growing and cutting timber, some of these methods are being used in other areas of the country (and by some progressive folks in the south). Those methods should be studied and taught to the people growing and cutting trees here.
  51. I think it is critical that agencies address the protection of our Forest by slowing or stopping these massive clear cuts that devastate the land affecting water quality, habitat for animals, property value decline, repair to road cost.
  52. Massive clearcutting is evident up and down the beautiful Tennessee Valley. Clearcutting is costing us in more than one area. Our roads suffer, wildlife is heavily impacted, water quality is affected, and not to be mentioned last but Scenic Forest is very important to hunters and tourists.
  53. I advocate protection of the forests. Clearing 1.2 million acres/yr without discriminating about which trees is inexcusable.
  54. How has the introduction of chipping related industries changed forest cutting and clearing practices? How do multiple chip demanding industries in the same sourcing area affect stumpage and encourage landholders to liquidate for chips over managing for long term, better income from mature forests? In the TVA chip mill study area, clearcutting already accounted for 44% of the forest cutting activities, due to the presence of 3 pulp and paper companies overlapping spheres of influence. How prevalent is this overlapping demand incentive in the study region?
  55. Feller Bunchers and other large, high impact machines are replacing the bunch of fellers that used to work the woods. Please address the influence of increased mechanization on the landscape level of reliance on capital intensive machines in forest cutting operations. Please address the nature of relationships between the buyers (pulp and paper companies, OSB, MDF etc.) and the "owner" operators of Feller Bunchers and other machines of mass destruction. By the nature of the capital intensity, and payment schedules, are operators of capital intensive logging systems forced to work longer days, faster, in all weather conditions, with less care and greater impacts to water and site quality? What is the difference in water and site conditions between typical logging operations of 20 years ago and today? Between horse logging operations and today's industrial logging?
  56. New debarker technology is coming on that will enable greater utilization of Hickory species for many low grade applications. Is there evidence that the remaining native forests of the region can meet existing and growing demands without serious consequences to forest health, diversity and coverage?
  57. New technologies seem to increase the capabilities of harvesting so that more forest will
    disappear faster. It fosters the continuance of clearcutting for pulp. We will have more regenerating forests and less habitat for creatures that need mature forests. We have to consider more than money in management of our forests.
  58. I have hiked in the forest of western NC and TN for the past 9 summers. Every summer I return to find that more of the precious forest is gone. The southern forest are fragmented enough, I am against clear cutting to feed the chip mills or for any other reason. Please protect our southern heritage.
  59. New? How about the ancient "technology" of silviculture? Clearcutting and high-grading should be considered old-school harmful technologies.
  60. New technology and engineered wood products and composites, small log utilization, lower fiber costs. Assess timber demand.
  61. How does greater use of new technology & modern forest practices impact the natural forested areas in the South?
  62. How much does new technology add to usable wood products? Is it a substitute for “traditional” technology?
  63. Can use lower grade product?
  64. Loss of future/timber volume due to increased regeneration costs.
  65. New herbicides.
  66. How does wood compare as an environmentally accepted building material?
  67. Harvesting technology--what does the future look like with new designs, etc.
  68. Look at reforestation effects of using good harvested technologies.
  69. Improved genetics.
  70. Develop a screen. What effect of near term vs. long term impacts on the environment? “Sustainability” issues.
  71. Controlled burns and selective herbicides with different management practices will open the under story for a more diverse use and multi-user condition.
  72. Harvesting technology on harvesting efficiencies.
  73. Consider BMP’s impact.
  74. Need to look at what bedding is doing to native flora, i.e., ecological health of the forest.
  75. Utilization of trees is very important. Look at where we are going from here.
  76. Address land prices effects on willingness to practice forest management.
  77. Improved wildlife habitat (example: turkeys, bluebirds, bear).
  78. Genetic improvement on hardwoods? River bottoms and other places – sweet gum, yellow polar, oak. Etc.
  79. Potentials for improved harvesting equipment?
  80. Logger’s underutilized/capacities have increased.
  81. Address positive effects of technology on forest health.
  82. Look at increased harvesting efficiency.
  83. Will other materials substitute for South timber?
  84. Quantify technology effects on quality (i.e., genetics, etc.).
  85. Is there a limit on how much technology to use? Is intensive management compatible with more than fiber product quality and other products?
  86. Future of technology in utilizing small diameter will shorten rotation.
  87. Identify some of the new, emerging technologies.
  88. Can harvesting technology care better for soil/site productivity?
  89. Look at increases in productivity (biological and industrial processes) due to technological advances.
  90. Look at new technology and how it affects rotation and changing management schemes.
  91. How does new technologies affect raw material utilization.
  92. What are the supply/demand relationships of the southern forest? Has the efficiency of harvesting the resource affected this relationship? Also, transportation of this material to a useable form. Closures and restructuring of mills have had a profound effect.
  93. How does fertilization affect the forest resources?
  94. What are the overall impacts to forest productivity and diversity caused by intensive forest management?
  95. What are the threats caused by intensive forest management?
  96. What are the impacts of increased utilization?
  97. What is the cost and improvements in logging operations and equipment?
  98. How have new technologies improved forest productivity?
  99. How have new technologies affected growth and removals?
  100. Is the new technology restoring the lands to a better shape?
  101. What are the negative influences (i.e. clearcutting, etc.)?
  102. What are the positive influences (i.e. faster growing trees)?
  103. Dissemination of information on productivity of better managed lands is needed to inform landowners.
  104. How do (domestic and export) chip mills and fuel mills affect forest resources?
  105. How does new technology affect utilization of the forest resources?
  106. How has or will new technology increase productivity of land, thus reducing acres to provide supply?
  107. How will the assessment team gather information/data that will be useful?
  108. Forestry community should not go back to old methods of harvesting.
  109. How does greater use of new technology & modern forest practices impact the natural forested areas in the South?
  110. How accessible is each technology to a variety of landowners.

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Question as revised in response to these comments

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