Wood in Our Future: The Role of Life-Cycle Analysis Proceedings of a Symposium (1997) / Chapter Skim
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WORKING GROUP SUMMARY AND ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
WORKING GROUP SUMMARY AND ROUND TABLE DISCUSSION
Pages 101-116
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From page 101... ...
1. What are data needs for assessing the environmental implications of using wood as a raw material ?
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From page 102... ...
Life-cycle methodologies could be modified to allow for differences in land types and management options including: · natural generation, · plantations, . public lands and management objectives, · private lands and management objectives, and · tropical versus temperate landscapes.
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From page 103... ...
Native American forested lands and lands devoted to special uses such as recreation are two examples of land types that might not be managed in the same manner as industrial forests; therefore, methodologies need to be flexible to handle various economic and social aspects of different land types. Ecosystem values and effects associated with timber, ores, oil extraction may involve greater differences in assessment methodologies than in subsequent product evaluations.
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From page 104... ...
The Seventh American Forest Congress met February 20-24,1996 in Washington, D.C. Some 1500 participants, drawn from a wide variety of interests, experiences, and locales, considered 13 vision elements and 60 principles to guide America toward its vision for forests.
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From page 105... ...
The use of wood as a raw material has energy and environmental implications, and many advocates note that wood is an energy efficient, renewable natural resource commodity that has very little impact on the environment and is in fact often beneficial. Proponents of other nonrenewable resources advocate the benefits of other commodities, and suggest that alternative materials have less impact on the environment, especially on a broad-area basis.
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From page 106... ...
Studies we performed in Georgia suggest that less than half of the nonindustrial private forest (NIPF) land area in the South receives any formal forestry advice before harvesting (Hodges, 1988~; surely a much lower percentage of landowners receive advice.
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From page 107... ...
These efforts will probably raise prices for consumer products, which will be differentially borne by poor people who spend more of their disposable income on shelter and paper products. As mentioned, NIPF landowners, who are producers of wood and environmental benefits, as well as consumers of certification services, might not accept these guidelines or requirements graciously.
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From page 108... ...
Forestry criteria that favor or mandate natural stand management and longer rotations excessively will penalize market responses to wood scarcity and thus cause forest landowners to lose profits. Certification programs should involve consumers, environmentalists, and forest landowners to avoid biases against market resource allocation.
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From page 109... ...
The selection and implementation for sustainable forestry criteria and standards also has considerable potential for arbitrary and capricious rules that are based on bad science and will probably discriminate against growing and harvesting timber cheaply to promote unquantifiable environmental benefits. This concern again argues for truly voluntary programs, where only the landowners who want to will participate, and thus they alone can capture any gains that are available from certification.
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From page 110... ...
Federal scientific and policy organizations should help analyze, plan, and develop means to establish good scientific efforts to measure the status and health of forest ecosystems, the merits of wood and other resources, and the means to dispassionately assess the relative merits of various resources for use. We need better information about resource use and protection, the effects of various certification programs on resource management and economics, and the integration of sound science into policy recommendations.
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From page 111... ...
Similarly, we have good data in some areas, bad data in others, no data in still others. It strikes me that projects like a follow up to the National Academy of Sciences 1976 report of the Committee on Renewable Resources for Industrial Materials (National Research Council, 1976)
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From page 112... ...
1976. Renewable resources for industrial materials.
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From page 113... ...
There are other questions addressed in this volume, concerning how the use of life-cycle concepts could affect trade and consumer acceptance, among other areas. There are many concerns about having a "level playing field" in the debate over ISO 14000 and other international standards.
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From page 114... ...
In conclusion, it seems that there is a logical next step. There should be a broad study to pull together the diverse research in this field in order to better explain "industrial ecology" and the broad consequences of materials production and processing, and to establish sound scientific principles both for directing the development of methodology and for critiquing proposed methodologies that might arise in different contexts.
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