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Re: GBlist: Good Wood



Hi:
I guess I wasn't being very clear. I was trying to say that we cannot
live without forests, not for use as building materials but simply as
forests.

 I don't think we have any right to use forested land rather we have a
responsibility to take care of the land we have already used.
I use wood from land that has been logged extensively and now supports
growth that is 60-80 years old. These 'new' forests are rapidly
disappearing because they don't have the emerging protections that some
of our native forests do. Many are in private hands and they are being
logged off for pulp, to create real estate, to expose aggregates or
minerals below the surface, etc.

 My interest is in creating a sense of concern for these forests
initially by saying the wood is valuable as a source of material for
sustainable building but only if it is cut selectively for that purpose
with the health of the forest as a priority. This creates a two sided
relationship between a logging community (however small) and the forests
they need to nurture and maintain partly for their income but
surprisingly in large part for their spirit, sense of community and
heritage. I know this sounds idealized but the immediate goal of
obtaining a material should never be the end one.

My other concern is that usage of materials other than wood does not
protect our forests or other aspects of our native landscape. Most
materials owe their origins to land, air, water and the more processed
the material is the more alienated we are from those origins and their
relative health.

 In this century we have experienced a frightening loss of topsoil due
to land intensive agricultural practices (not to mention pollution of
soil, contamination and loss of water, etc.). Now we are looking at
those same agricultural practices to produce not only the food we are in
short supply of but also to create fibre for processed building products
that we think of as sustainable. I have nothing to back this up but it
is my suspicion that for an equivalent amount of fibre forests consume
fewer inputs, suffer less loss, and produce far more additional benefits
than the most sustainable agricultural practices.

Another concern is mineral or aggregate extraction. Locally our forests
cover a lot of potential sites for gravel extraction and in the last
five years there has been a lot of new sites opened up on land that was
forested. I've looked at one exhausted site from the perspective of
restoration and it is a daunting task.

I agree that it really matters and I hope that I will always be looking
at how to do things from a larger sense of economy than the one I
participate in to pay my bills. I also hope that the process that
directs my choice of materials and techniques is one of consensus
arrived at through discussion and participation in forums such as this
rather than accepting the products of a 'elegance free market physics'
that has 'make it pay' and 'make it believable' as its
human goal.

Thanks, John

James.Olivia wrote:
> 
> John,
> 
> you wrote:
> "The contradiction is that we cannot live without wood, living wood -
> the
> stuff that makes up a forest. The catch is that forests do not seem to
> survive in our company."
> 
> I agree with much of what you say. But it IS hard to read your belief
> (a very
> common one, though unstated) that we have the right to use these
> lands, while
> they last, for whatever we need. In this case, you're saying (am I
> right?)
> that they have to be used for some sort of building material or other,
> so wood
> is the most sustainable choice.
> 
> I just think that this cycle of destroying the land has to stop
> somewhere. I'd
> like to hear what you would do & how you see it. The following
> paragraphs are
> how I see it.
> 
> Have you considered that everything we do would be a billion times
> more
> forgivable if our population was a billion times smaller?
> 
> I really believe this is the key (and this is radical, I know): Either
> we
> allow our lives to be limited by what food is available locally, by
> what
> shelter we can find here, and by the illnesses or other predators that
> come
> our way OR, in the absence of any other check on population growth, we
> WILL
> grow and grow until we reach the limits and then begin to decline.
> This is the
> law of nature. A lot of the new viruses and new inabilities for our
> immune
> systems to handle old stuff (so that now we develop allergies or
> athlete's
> foot or yeast infections or a million other things) are evidence of
> what's
> ahead. Nature is doing what it does when a population outgrows itself
> -- Weird
> things start happening. Look around you. There are all kinds of weird
> things
> happening.
> 
> I am not a pessimist declaring the end. I believe that we have
> alternatives,
> we always have. We can live within our limits. I believe that we could
> find/could found? a new culture that accepts these limits, even
> requires them.
> The reason I'm ranting about all this is that you sent a long message
> to this
> list that showed great concern and great thought about this issue. In
> terms of
> your choice of building materials, etc., I think you would do a lot of
> things
> differently if you could see what to do or thought it could matter. I
> believe
> it really, really matters.
> 
> I would love to hear back from you on this, whatever the response.
> 
> Olivia James
> james3@niehs.nih.gov
> 
> _______________________________________________________________________________
> From: John Salmen on Tue, May 13, 1997 1:49 PM
> Subject: Re: GBlist: Good Wood
> To: greenbuilding@crest.org
> 
> Good wood ... bad wood. Funny use of terms. Culturally wood has been
> 'bad' more often than 'good'. Wood in the sense of forested places,
> places to avoid. I would venture to say that we have probably never
> been
> comfortable with wood unless it is in some vanquished, processed,
> 'wooden' state. A text definition of which is stiff, clumsy, without
> animation or flexibility, inexpressive. Again a funny term not one
> that
> really defines our usage of the material but culturally a term that
> might express our relationship to it or the history of our
> relationship.
> 
> The contradiction is that we cannot live without wood, living wood -
> the
> stuff that makes up a forest. The catch is that forests do not seem to
> survive in our company. Forests are dying and in the opinion of many
> are
> already dead. They are not and never can be what they were and the
> remaining question  is can they survive as they are. An american
> biologist (whose name I forget) working on reconstruction of a
> forested
> area in Costa Rica said something to the effect that it is no longer a
> question of being able to preserve what was but of making decisions
> and
> playing a role in what is and what is to come.
> 
> As to the use or disuse of wood or any other material the decisions
> are
> so complex and cultural that I can never think of any particular usage
> of a material as being positive or even rational. I like Terry's
> comment
> about the issue being the reduction of mass and energy flows through
> our
> economy and the economy being what we pay to live on earth. I think of
> the economy of a structure as what it costs the earth to support it -
> both its construction and its day to day maintenance. When I tell
> clients that I try to design structures that promote health I also
> tell
> them that the health I'm referring to is not theirs but the
> environments
> but that there could be some benefits to them.
> 
> I use a lot of wood in my projects and the contradiction is that its
> use
> at this time helps to maintain this area as a forested region of the
> world and that is my principal reason for using it. I think of my
> relationship to the process and material usage as one of stewardship
> or
> perhaps husbandry is a better term, where I am as responsible for
> maintaining the viability of the source of the material as I am for
> defining its end usage. Selective cutting of 2nd or 3rd generation
> forested land and adding economic value to that cutting by defining it
> as a sustainable building material has the ironic net effect of
> increasing cultural value in that land and hopefully extending its
> life as forest. Its not a good marriage because I know that each tree
> that I have removed from a local forest represents future soil and
> nutrient loss for the entire forest and that cumulatively such loss
> might kill a forest. But I also know that I have the potential of
> drawing more building material from these sources than if they were
> given over to gravel extraction or straw production - with less
> commitment of additional resources and maintaining our forested
> canopies has probably more benefit to the world than anything else we
> could possibly do.
> 
> John Salmen
> TERRAIN E.D.S.
> terrain@seaside.net
> __________________________________________________________________
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