Raul’s Blog

I ran across a disclaimer from an online teak reseller last week. It got me thinking about teak and the tree farms it comes from. The disclaimer highlights some disadvantages of owning plantation-grown teak products. Keep in mind, this is marketing copy to entice you to buy Teak furniture!

All new teak wood will undergo a process where the natural oils of the wood rise to the surface. This process is natural and cannot be prevented. It allows dirt and residue to stick to the oil on the surface of the wood. The furniture should be cleaned by scrubbing the surface with a non-abrasive brush and using a solution of mild detergent and water. Rinse the furniture well and let it dry in the sun. All of the finishes that we offer require this general maintenance. Additional maintenance requirements for specific finishes … are described below.

Excerpted from: GO_CareAndMaintenance.pdf (PDF)

Teak is a good quality outdoor wood despite the maintenance issues mentioned above. Forever Redwood is not a fan of teak because of how the teak is grown. The teak tree farmers sing a green song and have the muscle to broadcast this message wide. But, I have visited teak tree farms in Central America. If you visited them, you’d see why we are not fans….

Teak has big companies behind it. Even Martha Stewart came out in May 2010 lauding Teak as her outdoor wood of choice. But, although it is “sustainable” and it does take pressure off the native forests somewhat, there are a few hidden “uglies” no one mentions.

The Teak industry does not mention what existed on most lands before they became tree farms. The reason is because these monoculture teak tree farms are growing where once biologically diverse forestlands existed.

Ouch. Once you understand this and verify it, the green credentials kind of have a large hole in them, don’t you think?  It matters little if the tree farm is sustainable, if it’s not natural or diverse and the tree species come from another continent.

To be fair to the tree farmers, some of the native forests were cleared decades ago and some a couple centuries back. But, in too many cases, recently cut native forestlands are also being converted to tree farms.

Yes, we at Forever Redwood are tree huggers. But, not just any fast growing non-native tree will do (Teak is native to Asia). The climate situation worldwide cries out for a restoration of the many tree species that are native to each area.

Native forests exist because they’ve adapted over thousands of years to the local conditions. They create habitat, replenish aquifers, and do hundreds of other beneficial things. Fast growing money crops that grow in straight lines are not adapted to local climates and will cause problems long-term, from soil imbalances to insect infestations, and they can not be adapted for local wildlife to use as habitat.

Don’t take my word for it. Look into it yourself. It’s green marketing, my friends.

Since most of us don’t have the time to look into things, if it looks green we take it on its word. Look closely and you’ll see the not so pretty truth.

Teak tree farms are profitable because they grow quickly on cheap lands with cheap labor. On the other hand, doing forestry right takes a lot of time and money. Here at Forever Redwood, we’ll keep restoring native forestlands instead and we very much appreciate your support.

Thank you for letting me rant a bit. It keeps me sane.

“Sustainable Forestry” is primarily green marketing. It’s unfortunate, it’s sad, but in my humble (and experienced) opinion, it’s truly the case.

In September, 2009, the New York Times ran an interesting article: Environmental Groups Spar Over Certifications of Wood and Paper Products that shows how and why this is true.

The original Smartwood standards created by the Institute for Sustainable Forestry in Redway, CA have been expanded and broken down into many new certification standards. You can visit the Rainforest Alliance site at www.rainforest-alliance.org to learn more.

It’s a great website and these guys sound green to the core. I am sure they are well intentioned and are committed to the cause. They have the paperwork, the website, the contracts and the legal and political muscle in place. But, the bottom line is in order to have grown to over 100 million acres under certification, even the best of these standards has in practice been watered down over the years to allow for larger and larger industrial concerns to sign on.

FSC (Forest Stewardship Council) has the best reputation in the industry and deservedly so. They have moved industrial forestry in the right direction a couple steps. But, it’s not enough. Nowhere near enough to reverse the degradation still going on all over the world or even to restore the lands under certification.

For example, to be certified “sustainable” by FSC does not mean forestlands have to be restored to large trees or that the great losses in biodiversity and wildlife habitat are being significantly restored. To the contrary, most certified forests only have to be maintained as working forests full of young trees in most cases. It’s better than no forests, but it’s not green in any real sense.  The examples are endless. I’ll just mention three points:

• The rates of cut are still too high to allow for mature trees to develop in any significant quantities.
• Many certified concerns still are allowed to use chemical herbicides.
• Large monoculture teak tree farms that replaced biologically diverse forestlands are certified as sustainable.

Saying this in public and without any qualifications may get me sued by some of these wealthy and large organizations. And, I may be forced to remove this blog entry at some point. But, it’s the sad truth.

If you have an interest in this subject and want to delve deeper, the NY Times article spells it out clearly. Here is a major newspaper, considered liberal by most standards, telling you in a not-so-indirect way that the certification standards for sustainably harvested forest products are bunk.

Buried in the article is the truth about “sustainable forestry.” The article focuses on the legal and political machinations amongst competing “green forestry” labels. It seems to lean in favor of the FSC standards as generally being considered stricter environmentally. But, if you read the article to its conclusion, Consumers Union, a third-party that verifies the validity of the claims of both “certification bodies,” gives them both poor to average marks for Forest Stewardship.

We need a new standard for truly green forestry. The standards written in Forever Redwood’s Restoration Forestry Manual cannot be manipulated politically because the main points are quantitative and verifiable. This is not the case with the existing standards in general use. If you severely limit the rate of cut in all time frames into the future, your forestry practices are constrained to always allow the forest to mature to large and ancient trees again. This is the heart of the matter and the one the existing certifications skirt.

To read about our forestry standards, please go to: www.foreverredwood.com/restoration-forestry.php

Your comments are welcome.

Click image to read full article

Ed Homer, a filmmaker and supporter of restoration forestry, sent us a link to one of his recent videos:

The video shows a great example of the best of what the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) has to offer. Most FSC-certified forests have lower standards than those of the gentlemen’s lands in the video. (Merve Wilkensen, the forester in the video, is one of the people I studied years ago. He is a pioneer in the field.) The 10% set aside for Old-Growth trees is fantastic. It’s not required by FSC, but this is the key to restoring and not just sustaining lands.

In fact, we’re meeting the same higher standards here at Old-Growth Again. The key is to cut at a very low rate that allows the forest to bring back the Old-Growth on its own over time. We also set aside 5 trees per acre to never be cut. Combining the very low cut rate and the set asides is the key to restoration forestry. Restoration forestry exceeds sustainable forestry standards because of the lower rates of cut set in perpetuity.

Thanks to Ed for the video link and keep up the good work!

An article published this week in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat details a level headed approach to forestry. The details mentioned are a close reproduction of the practices Old-Growth Again uses to begin the restoration process of cut-over lands. It’s heartening to see this becoming more generally practiced and other restoration outfits popping up around the country.

I think once the national forests lands mentioned are restored, the forest service contracts eventually issued will in all likelihood cut at a faster rate than we are doing. Under Forest Stewardship Council guidelines mentioned, they will probably cut about 2% per year versus our 1% per year limit. This is the basic difference between Sustainable Forestry and Restoration Forestry. But, at least in the initial phase, they are both nearly identical since there is little timber that can be harvested and only the thinning, planting and soil management aspects can be addressed.

This aside, the article details a significant turning point in forest management in the Northwest.  It is hopefully the long-awaited shift in the political wars of the past 30 years that pitted ecology vs economy instead of ecology and economy as we’ve been struggling to demonstrate since 1994.

Here’s the intro to the article, with a link to read more….

(AP Photo/Jeff Barnard) In this May 15, 2009 photo, Lomakotsi Restoration Project crew supervisor Aaron Nauth stands on the stump of a centuries old tree and looks over an old clearcut that his team has thinned on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest outside Takilma, Ore.

TAKILMA, Ore. (AP) — On a steep slope of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, a crew of young men with chain saws and hardhats worked their way through an old neglected clearcut, cutting brush and young trees and piling the remains to be burned later.

Freshly trained and closely supervised, the crew took care to leave behind volunteer sproutings of dogwood, madrone and huckleberry as well as the sugar pine and Douglas fir planted here 20 years ago. The pattern is designed to grow into a healthy forest less vulnerable to wildfire and better for fish and wildlife, rather than just turn out timber.

The House Hope Stewardship Project, taken off the shelf with $1.4 million from President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package, will thin and restore 890 acres.

It’s a tiny fraction of the 60 million to 80 million acres the U.S. Forest Service estimates need it nationwide, but people here feel as if this is a start — not only to grappling with the growing threat of wildfire in a warming climate, but in healing rifts between environmentalists, the timber industry and the Forest Service that have left the national forests in limbo.

Read the full article »

This article is shared courtesy of ARA Content.

How A Forest Products Company is Making a Real Environmental Impact

Little Raulito enjoying a Forever Redwood Kid's Rocking Chair. Behind him stands a Large Vase Planter. Proceeds from the sale of Forever Redwood products go toward our Redwood forest restoration work.

(ARA) - With the growing popularity of green building practices, more companies are incorporating environmental and sustainability policies. These are all positive steps toward reducing the impact of global warming and caring for our earth. But what do you really know about a product you buy that is labeled green? Is it really environmentally friendly, or is it just a marketing scheme? And how much of a difference is it actually making?

“Green and sustainable forestry practices are a step in the right direction. But even the most stringent standards, those certified internationally by the Forest Stewardship Council, are only a modest step away from the large-scale deforestation practices that were prevalent until recently,” says Raul Hernandez, founder of Old-Growth Again, an organization dedicated to restoring logged forestlands back to their ancient form.

Hernandez goes on to explain the problem is sustainable forestry does little in the way of restoring large and ancient trees overtime. Without these trees as a significant portion of working forests, the effects forestlands can have on global cooling are limited. Under sustainable forestry practices, lands are cut at rates of up to 30 percent per decade. At this rate of cut, a forest is “sustained,” but it’s maintained as a young forest in perpetuity with trees rarely exceeding 80 years of age.

OGA is changing this by practicing a much higher “Restoration Forestry” standard. Restoration forestry involves many practices including limiting the rate of cut to a maximum of 10 percent in any one decade. This conservative rate allows for a growth increase of standing lumber at rates of approximately 20 percent per decade, allowing the forest to mature so that a large amount of the forest canopy will once again be dominated by trees over 200 years old (the definition of old-growth).

Why is this important? “Depending on the tree species and geography, forests managed on a 200-year cycle sequester 3 to 4 times more carbon per acre than forests managed on 60 to 80 year cycles,” says Hernandez. “Restoration forestry practiced on a global scale would cause dramatic global cooling to take place while growing the highest quality lumber.”

Rainbow over Forest Redwood forestlands in Annapolis, CA—lands we are restoring through your furniture purchases

How can you help? With the nice weather, more people are spending time outside enjoying their yards. If you are looking to add some new furniture and decor, consider Forever Redwood, OGA’s thick-timber products, which help fund the organization’s mission. Add some new lawn furniture, a gazebo or pergola, a swing or just some planter boxes. The look and design of the products is a throwback to another era when lumber was plentiful and of extremely high quality.

Besides supporting a good cause, redwood products are very long lasting and can be left outdoors for decades in elements such as harsh sun and snow, without maintenance. You can choose from three grades of redwood for Forever Redwood products — young, mature and old-growth. Half of the lumber used is from salvaged material left on the forest floor when the forest was first logged in the 40s and 50s. This wood is carefully inspected, and because of its high quality, much of it is in great shape and can be used, a testament to the longevity of the old-growth lumber. The other half comes from careful harvesting of the forest.

“One of the biggest aspects of global warming is deforestation. If forest lands are managed so they sequester carbon as they did before the high levels of harvesting, a big part of global warming equation would be eliminated,” says Hernandez.

To learn more about Forever Redwood furniture and products, and how old-growth forests are helping counteract global warming, visit www.ForeverRedwood.com.

Courtesy of ARA Content

Throughout recorded history, forestry has usually been practiced in extremes.  Rarely is it a level-headed conservative approach.  Through the first 6,000 years of recorded history, humans mostly just mowed down forests around them to create living and agricultural grounds.  In the past couple hundred years, some level headedness has been introduced.  First in the mountains of Switzerland to avoid landslides from over cutting hillsides above towns. And in the U.S., the Forest Service was formed over 100 years ago under Gifford Pinchot as a middle of the road, “wise use” management philosophy service.  Over the decades, politics has taken the U.S. Forest Service from very conservative to semi-exploitative and back again.  Today, all timber companies talk green and are certified “sustainable” by various agencies, but with few exceptions, they are still over-harvesting their lands.  

A recent article in the news reports on a U.S. Geological Survey finding that old-growth forests in the west are dying off, due to global warming.

THURSDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) — Trees in old-growth forests in the Western United States are dying at twice the rate they were a few decades ago, and experts suspect regional warming is to blame.

The report, led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), found that the increase in tree deaths has included trees in a variety of forests, elevations and sizes. Species have included pine, fir, hemlock and other coniferous trees. In addition, the rate of new tree growth has not changed, according to the report in the Jan. 23 issue of Science. [Read the full article.]

The article goes on to report that the consequences of this phenomenon include ”increased wildfire activity across the Western U.S., as well as bark beetle outbreaks that are occurring at unprecedented levels across Western North America.” And we learn that “these changes in climate necessitate a reevaluation of policies on how forests are managed, including new ways of dealing with wildfires and limiting development.”

From my perspective working to restore Old-Growth Redwood forestland in northern California, here’s my take. Global warming is real. But so is a mindset in certain parts of the scientific/political/academic community to use alarmist tactics to push conservation and other agendas. Yes, higher temperatures have created problems with die-offs in many western forests that are affecting Old-Growth Forests as well. There are huge bug infestation increases and other issues. Some of it can be attributed to climate, but I assure you, the bulk of the issue is poor forest management practices that are coming home to roost.  Also, the article makes it seem that ALL western forests are facing this grave issue. This is the alarmist part. The truth is the bulk of the lumber volume west of the Mississippi is on the Western Coast. The die-offs that were studied are inland from the coastal areas. Although the inland forests amount to several times the acreage of the coastal forests from Washington State down to Central California, they represent less overall timber volume than the coastal forests do. Therefore the coastal forest health is more important and it is not addressed in this article because it doesn’t fit the alarmist agenda.

I don’t disagree with the alarmist agenda. We need to scare the pants off people to fix these things, but it’s also good to keep your perspective. The major forests of the west (the coastal forests) are not being affected much if any by what is discussed in this article. On the western coast, in the Redwoods where Old-Growth Again operates, climate change is tempered by the ocean’s influence over the coastal climate.

We desperately need to make changes in the ways forests are managed. And, this is mentioned in the article. Unfortunately what is considered change is in most cases a drastic swing in the opposite direction away from over harvesting and poor soil management to almost complete preservation (no tree harvesting or almost none). Preservation is fine if the forests are in good shape. But, imposed on structurally deteriorated stands, it creates even more problems than it solves (species composition, tree quality, fire hazard, etc.).

If old trees are allowed to dominate the canopies of forests while the poor quality and overrepresented species are slowly culled, the forest will once again recreate microclimates that will insulate themselves and begin to positively influence the external climate to its advantage. But, the forests of the west are fragmented and full of problems created mostly by bad forestry. I am certain that under the present management schemes, the forests in general will continue to deteriorate including the old-growth tree patches that remain. But, if the forest is managed to recreate mature and old-growth trees, and most of the poor quality trees are systematically removed, the opposite of what this study predicts will happen. I assure you.  I will prove it to you.  Just check back in 30 years and you’ll see how much healthier and larger the lands your crazy uncle manages are in.

There’s a wonderful article about Stuart Schroeder’s plans to create an interpretive historical farm at Stone Farm in Santa Rosa, above the Laguna de Santa Rosa. Stuart’s Percherons help us with our horse logging, and so we’re delighted to see his excellent work in the news.

With the autumn sun ebbing in the west, two Percheron draft horses pulled a 1930s-era manure spreader across farmland on a rise above the Laguna de Santa Rosa.

It was a scene that schoolchildren might one day observe at the city of Santa Rosa’s Stone Farm, the planned site of a center for visitors wishing to view the Laguna and to learn about ecology and the agricultural past….

Here at Old-Growth Again, we have two great draft horses helping us with our forest restoration work. These beautiful animals can assist with the harvesting and thinning work, without damaging the soil and standing trees, the way a big machine would do.

It’s great to see efforts underway to preserve and promote our connection to nature and to our agricultural past. It’s especially important for our children to experience “the way things were”… and still are in some quarters.

Click to learn more about Stuart Schroeder and his wonderful Percherons.

Once an old-growth forest is cut down, can it be recreated? After almost all the large trees are gone and the land is cut up by roads? After the soil is exposed to direct sun and rain and erosion has lowered its productivity? After the streams are filled with sediment and the fish populations plummet? Can the forest really be brought back to anything like it was before?

In 1978, the Redwoods National Park in N. California had a large swath of over-logged lands added to the original old-growth park. Congress added the cutover lands with a caveat: All roads should be closed and filled in and the forest had to be restored like the old-growth around it.

With a large budget for restoration, an amazing transformation has taken place over the last 30 years. It is the largest example of full scale restoration in the Redwoods. It can be done.

But even without large budgets, restoration of some or most of the old-growth characteristics of cut over forests can be accomplished in decades—not centuries. Most forests in the U.S. have been cut at least once. For example, 96% of the Redwood forest has been cut.

Old-Growth Again manages 700 acres of average quality forests that had 95% of the Redwood volume cut in the 60’s. By the mid 90’s, the forest had too many hardwoods (uncut when the land was harvested) and endless young trees of average to poor quality. Instead of about 80 to 100 trees per acre of all sizes and ages, we inherited over 1,000 mostly small and suppressed trees per acre just waiting for a fire to set them off. Most were dying or going to die from a lack of growing space.

The roads were leaching soil into the streams. Poorly constructed roads were collapsing in the winter storms. You couldn’t see a foot in front of you because most trees had grown low lying branches that were in your face. It was the furthest thing from the cathedral-like open spaces under an old-growth forest canopy.

We started in 1995 by thinning out the poorest quality trees and the over-represented tree species (mostly hardwoods and some Douglas-fir). It was an acre by acre “hands-on” thinning from below. A couple chain saws, manual loppers and a pole saw is all we used. We fixed the worst erosion problems by adding lots of natural structure to the soil and thinned most of the lower branches away to lower the fire hazard and open up the understory. It took two men 3 1/2 years working 2 days per week to finish the first 40-acre thinning.

When complete in 1999, a strong contrast with neighboring parcels was obvious. The neighbors noticed, the government noticed, our friends noticed. We began to receive requests to work on neighboring lands and modest financial offers to help buy nearby parcels and restore them. A portable mill was purchased to mill some of the downed material and a furniture company was born. In the last 9 years we’ve grown to manage 700 acres and thinned and planted nearly 300 acres to date.

It will take another 5 years to complete the first round of thinning and planting on all the acreage. But, the thinned and planted lands are already significantly transformed. If we never did anything else, the forest will grow back to Old-Growth Again with good spacing, significantly restored species composition, improved tree quality and partially restored soils. The fire hazard has been reduced, wildlife habitat improved and the forest opened from below and closed from above as it should be. (For example, birds can now fly through the forests where before it was mostly an inpenetrable maze of branches and dying trees.)

If the thinning, planting and soil building is repeated two more times over the next couple decades, the forest will return to being multi-canopy and full of large mature trees with the general structure of the prior stand essentially restored. Then the passing decades will add the larger old-growth trees whether or not the land is managed again. And, this is after yielding a modest timber harvest each entry to help pay for the restoration.

It doesn’t take a lot of money to restore forestland if you are willing to do the work yourself. It does take a lifelong commitment to getting it done in balance with nature. If you own a few acres and want to spruce them up a bit or restore them fully, take a look at the links below.

The link below shows a typical regenerating young Redwood grove 30 years after heavy logging and before being thinned. Next to it is another typical young Redwood grove after thinning. Startling before and after. The work in the “after” photo was done by one person in one full day with a chainsaw and a pole saw. A lot can be done on any forestland if the owners want to put the time and energy into it:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/befaft.php

To read more about forest restoration and how to duplicate our results on any land, please visit:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/sustainable.php

Or, our 8-minute video shows the process in action:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/video.php

As always, thank you for your continuing financial support. If you have questions or comments, please let us know.

Each summer and fall the fire season explodes and the news is filled with stories of burning homes and thousands of brave men and women fighting fires and risking their lives protecting communities. It’s a giant annual event and its getting worse. In July 2008, lightning storms ignited thousands of fires in California that burned for weeks. The losses and cost to contain them were staggering. The real calamity in all this is that it is mostly an avoidable disaster. It really doesn’t have to be this way.

Forest fires are a vital and natural part of all western forests. The fires regenerate and balance countless biological processes. For example, some vegetation has been recorded as extinct in areas where fires were suppressed only to reappear after a fire!

The probability an average fire will grow to be a catastrophic fire is multiplied when forestlands are poorly managed. Most of the forests of the west today are young and overgrown. Hot, highly destructive fires feed on the excessive lower limbs, downed woody debris and the suppressed and dying trees of mostly young forests.

A labor-intensive program of thinning suppressed trees and lower limbs of standing trees combined with lopping and scattering the excessive woody debris lowers this dangerous fuel level.  Lower fuel levels limit the opportunities for a normal fire to become a devouring dragon.

Thinning is central to the Restoration forestry we’ve been practicing since 1995. Thinning mimics many beneficial effects of mild fires and is a proven proactive solution to the growing fire catastrophies we have in the western United States. As our work grows over the years, we hope to make a significant contribution to fire hazard reduction in our neck of the woods.

To learn more about thinning, fire hazard reduction and basic restoration forestry practices that are applicable to forests anywhere, please visit our forest restoration page at: http://www.oldgrowthagain.com/sustainable.php