Need More Cheap Canadian Lumber? Learn to Conserve
12/27/96
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Need More Cheap Lumber? Learn to Conserve
Friday December 27, 1996 Edition
Copyright 1996 The Christian Science Publishing Society.
All rights reserved.
By Marc Evans and Dana Harmon
It's a rare day in the US when the largest American timber companies
and the least compromising environmental groups agree on a forest
issue. But when it comes to importing more inexpensive, clear-cut
Canadian timber into the US to lower lumber prices, that's what
happens.
Real estate developers recently took the Clinton administration to
task for allowing the price of an average new home to increase by
$2,000. In their minds, the culprit is a shortage of framing lumber,
which caused prices to rise by one-third last year. Their solution:
Get rid of import restrictions on cheaper, subsidized Canadian wood
and use it to frame the bulk of our new homes.
Granted, the US needs safe, affordable housing, but we don't need to
deforest Canada or eliminate American timber jobs to get it. Faced
with the real cost of Canadian lumber in terms of human rights and
environmental integrity, this ceases to be an attractive solution. We
can learn to conserve wood, lessen our demand for lumber, and reduce
the pressure on forests.
Generous government subsidies and weaker environmental laws make
Canadian imports cheaper than American lumber. Most Canadian timber
comes from the forests of British Columbia. These are the forests of
travel-ad fame, where trees grow to be 1,700 years old, river otters
and salmon swim in clear-running streams, and bald eagles fly
overhead.
The forests are famous for their biological diversity and density,
boasting the highest biomass of any on earth. And these forests also
are known for their destruction: They are being clear-cut faster than
any other in the world. Ninety-five percent of the timber logged in
British Columbia comes from old-growth forests.
THE British Columbia government all but gives these forests away to a
handful of powerful companies. Three giants control half of the
coastal rain forest land. And logging fees are so low that even a
recent 70 percent increase brought them up to only one-third of US
levels, which are themselves below market value. Canada's new
Endangered Species Act pertains to only 1.1 percent of British
Columbia, so timber companies contribute less money to wildlife
protection than their US counterparts.
While the cutting continues, the ownership of this valuable land is in
dispute. The native peoples of British Columbia still have outstanding
land claims over a vast majority of these forests. Unlike Native
Americans south of the border, British Columbia's First Nations never
lost their land in battle nor ceded it in treaty negotiations. The
courts may give it back to them one day, minus the forests and the
wildlife.
But no matter how much we may condemn Canadian forestry practices, our
consumption patterns send another message. Americans use more wood
than anyone else on earth, and this drives deforestation at home and
abroad. We are catastrophically wasteful, throwing out 13.7 million
tons of wood every year that could be used to make engineered lumber,
furniture, and paper.
We build most of our houses using a construction method that has not
been significantly improved in 100 years, despite advances in
engineering knowledge. According to the National Association of Home
Builders (a group that advocates increased Canadian lumber imports),
builders can reduce the cost of an average home by 12 percent by using
wood-efficient framing techniques and engineered lumber. Other
estimates put the savings as high as 35 percent. In fact, the rising
cost of dimensional lumber could be just the catalyst the housing
industry needs to embrace these resource-efficient innovations.
Of course, no law of government or nature requires houses to be built
of wood, although the timber industry spends millions of dollars each
year trying to ensure that building officials, regulators, and
consumers continue this practice. The most plentiful building
materials in this country are earth and rock, which are used in many
forms to provide safe and comfortable housing all over the world but
are passively discouraged in the US by building codes. Our waste
stream - from bales of straw to blocks of polystyrene - is another
source of material that can be used to replace much of the wood in
building.
THE most effective action we can take is to learn to live modestly, a
point underscored recently by the distinguished conservative thinker
William Bennett. In a National Press Club address, he asked, "Why,
when we have so much material wealth, are Americans so cynical, so
distressed, so angry with each other, so untrusting, so ticked off
about so many things?" He noted that Americans consume twice as many
goods and services as they did immediately after World War II, and the
average home today is twice as large as it was then. He concluded, "We
are making desires into needs, and are, as a result, not living at the
center."
Mr. Bennett's remarks suggest the best way for Americans to avoid
paying an extra $2,000 for a new house: Skip the three-car garage, the
cathedral ceiling in the master bedroom, and the extra bathroom.
Renovate an existing structure or build small. By cutting back our
material consumption, we can improve the quality of our own lives and
let the plants, animals, and native cultures of Canada keep what
forests they have left.
*Marc Evans is a forest campaigner for Greenpeace International, and
Dana Harmon is the director of the Wood Reduction Clearinghouse in San
Francisco.