I would like to discuss sustainability

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I cringe every time I cut into a slab of mahogany. I get sad when I see cocobolo being less and less available. My heart sank when Bubinga was added to the CITES list. My signature in my woodworking has always been the use of exotic woods and fancy shell inlays. I have been diligent in ensuring my suppliers are getting their materials from reputable producers. I just worry about the future of our craft, and what we can do to ensure sustainability, especially with "exotic" woods from Brazil, Africa, and other locations where we may have less control over what really happens on the front lines.

What are your thoughts about sustainability of our craft, especially with so-called "exotic" lumber?

[Wayne Lomman]

I think we have to face the inevitable fact that some timber species will not be available. We will have to adapt to this change. Ever heard of Australian Cedar? It was wiped out a century ago. Beautiful timber but no longer legal to cut.

My focus is on local species and restoration and recycling. My new timber comes from my own state where I know the rules are enforced and that sustainability is paramount. My current government has just tried to open up a reserve area for logging. Guess who opposed them and got the bill off the table? It was the Timber Millers Association. They knew it was a bad idea.

Some may argue if I don't use the exotics, someone else will. Let them have the bad conscience.

In the end, excellence in design is of greater significance than the species. Cheers

[Dave Zellers]

Certainly all timber species can be saved if we're willing. We could even farm exotic woods if we were willing to be patient.

We are doing a reasonable job with animal species, it would be cool if trees would follow.

[roger wiegand]

Its an interesting balance. The trees have to be made sufficiently valuable so that they aren't just clear cut for farming, yet not so valuable that they are clear cut for short-term economic gain. It's made more difficult in that many exotics only do well is a complex mixed ecosystem, which means preserving relatively large stretches of forest. A way has to be found so that the economics at the levels of the local people, the landowners, and the governments involved all favor a sustainable harvest and preservation of the forest. Not a trivial challenge.

I'd guess that hobby and small custom woodworkers use only a tiny fraction of the exotic wood production, so whatever we do will be small and symbolic. It's a starting place though, so supporting certification programs that aren't bogus and supporting suppliers who ensure that at least some profit flows back to the local population are things that can be done.

Because that's difficult information to find I've erred on the side of primarily using wood that grows locally, using exotics only sparingly.

[Mark Blatter]

Certainly all timber species can be saved if we're willing. We could even farm exotic woods if we were willing to be patient.

We are doing a reasonable job with animal species, it would be cool if trees would follow.

I am not sure we are doing a reasonable job with animals, but certainly there is a strong effort to save them. The difficulty is that no one, or at least few, can look at a photo of a small sapling and go 'Oh how cute'. Not like happens with a baby animal.

Perhaps it is up to woodworkers to find ways to replace the exotic woods with more common ones. If people stop buying the exotics, they will stop harvesting them.

I get worried that we will have a blight on the readily available species like maple, walnut or even oak, that they will go the way of the chestnut tree.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

When Paulownia was touted to be the next great wood, people planted farms of it. Many of them couldn't survive the wait for the stuff to reach harvesting age and also paulownia didn't catch on like they thought it would. Now it is a prized boatbuilding wood for its strength to weight ratio, but it is very expensive.

Bamboo has been a great alternative for flooring and other uses. It grows like a weed. Heck- it IS a weed!

Growing rosewood, true mahogany, and other "exotic" woods takes 30+ years to reach any reasonable size. It's not a profitable option. The only option would be Forrest management and replanting multiple trees for every one you cut down. Even then, you have issues with fast growth versus slow growth- not to mention damage to the rain forrests.

[Ryan Mooney]

Perhaps it is up to woodworkers to find ways to replace the exotic woods with more common ones. If people stop buying the exotics, they will stop harvesting them.

I'm not sure on that, a large percentage of the forest loss is due to farming practices (slash and burn in the tropics and goat overgrazing in the desert plus a few other issues .. its complicated). So if no one buys the wood its burned and if we (in the global we) do buy the wood its excessively logged, usually by outside timber companies. I would like there to be an easy answer but I don't see what it is.

I would like to believe that purchasing from direct importers that work with local inhabitants to do sustainable silviculture we could get to a "good" place. But finding out who is actually doing all the right things through the whole supply chain is really really hard (and as someone who buys maybe a few dozen board feet per year I'm irrelevant anyway).

[Malcolm McLeod]

Historically, it seems humans have looked at a forest and harvested it, because there was always the next one, and the next. Today, I think most of the world has realized there are very few, if any 'next' forests.

If we look at trees, with lumber as the harvest, it is simple math to balance planting, growth, and harvest. Magically, we have sustainability - until greed, or population growth, or fire, or parasites wreck the supply-side math. As lumber consumers, we can control the demand to some extent. Who knows if we will ever be able to balance scales.

This is part of why I like cherry. It is a domestic, so I'm not tempting some Amazonian to clear cut the rain forest. And best of all, the last stats I saw indicated there is more Cherry by volume growing in N. America currently than there ever has been. (Tho' I hear the majority is pretty small at this point).

Similar for Bald Cypress. The NA volume is still increasing (growing faster than harvest rate).

This may not help you find Bubinga for a new project, but perhaps exotic species can be replaced with unique arrangements of grain...?

[John C Cox]

Look at the places where the bulk of this stuff is becoming a problem. Its places where private property rights are fairly weak or not well enforced for "common people"... There is instability in these sort of laws - and so people have a huge incentive to rape and pillage.

So for example.. Say you plant out a plantation of various rosewoods and mahoganies in South America... How are you going to guarantee that the POLITCS are not going to capsize you between now and 50 years from now...

Thats why India did so well with IRW... Huge privately owned tea plantations that were protected from poaching.... The British enforced strong private property rights that extended generations and the Indian government did likewise.... So you knew there would be a stable political climate for your kids....

Same for Western Europe and the USA.... Strong and well enforced private property rights ensure the forest YOU plant will be your children's in 50 years.... The politics in South America and Africa are so unstable that there is no assurance that your property wont be confiscated in the next 10 years... Why would you bother to invest in something thats not going to pay out for 50 years? And so they dont.

[Wayne Lomman]

And then there are the perfectly legal managed investment schemes for investing in plantation timber. The only problem is, they are actually ponzi schemes. Tasmania is suffering the consequences of such corporate scams right now. There are eucalypt plantations that cannot be touched because the ownership of the trees is so vague that it is only the bankruptcy lawyers making money for the foreseeable.

Greed and excessive consumption are behind all these issues. Cheers

[Rod Sheridan]

Malcolm, it is a serious concern.

I no longer use anything that isn't domestic, or locally harvested.

I live in a large city, and once I built a small sawmill, aside from some old growth reclaimed Douglas Fir I purchased, all my wood has been stuff diverted from the shredder or firewood supplier.

Oak, Ash, Maple, Cherry, Walnut and Catalpa logs have been obtained for free and converted to lumber.

Last year, for the cost of a few band saw blades I milled 1,000BF of Red Oak from 3 free logs from an arborist, who even delivered them to save on disposal costs.

Keep up the good fight, this is only one of the issues we need governments to tackle more forcefully, and of course anything we do can only help........Rod.

[Brian Tymchak]

I get worried that we will have a blight on the readily available species like maple, walnut or even oak, that they will go the way of the chestnut tree.

Hate to ruin your day, but it may already be in progress - google up Asian Longhorn Beetle. I've heard they prefer Maple, Birch, but I've also read that they might infest all domestic species.

[David Helm]

Here in the Pacific Northwest we have already almost completely gone through the original Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar forests. My use of lumber consists primarily of what was once considered weed trees; Red Alder, Western Big Leaf Maple, salvaged (drift logs) Alaska Yellow Cedar and locally cut Walnut. All of these are relatively fast growing and some consist of specimen trees grown on private property and removed for reason of disease or esthetics. Most Doug Fir and WRC comes from Canada these days, and they aren't exactly doing sustainable logging. As far as exotics, I just don't use them.

[Stan Calow]

Whatever happened to Lyptus? It was supposed to be the best thing since sliced bread.

Malcolm, I've been buying pieces of river-salvaged mahogany from Greener Lumber in Macon, Missouri. They specialize in recovering sunken old logs in Honduras and processing to lumber. I like the idea of salvaging tropical wood already cut. Otherwise, have started only buying salvaged domestic urban wood from a local dealer as well. Suits my needs as a small time hobbyist.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

It's scary when fir and cedar are becoming scarce. As for salvaged wood, I built a paddleboard out of a salvaged sailboat mast. I still have enough for one or two more. I bought some sinker cedar for a guitar build and it was amazing stuff.