enjoyment of forest ownership. In contrast to softwoods which mainly derive from fast growing plantations, nearly all U.S. hardwoods derive from slower growing and more diverse natural forests. Because timber production and economic return to shareholders are not primary objectives, the owners of American hardwood forests tend to manage less aggressively and to grow their forests on long rotations.


Selection harvesting, involving removal of only a few trees per hectare, rather than clear-felling, is typical in American hardwood forests. The size of harvesting operations is limited by the small size of forest holdings which rarely exceed ten hectares. After harvesting, forest owners usually rely on natural regeneration, which is abundant in the deep fertile forest soils of the U.S. There is little need or incentive for addition of chemical fertilisers. No non-native “exotic” or genetically modified species are used.


Long term management of U.S. hardwood forests for sustainable timber production makes a significant contribution to carbon storage. Each year for the last 50 years American hardwood forests stored around the equivalent of 165 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (excluding all harvested material). That’s enough to offset about 14% of U.S. annual residential emissions in 2006, or 9% of U.S. annual transport emissions in the same year. This direct contribution of America’s hardwood forests to carbon sequestration excludes the carbon held in long term storage as a component of American hardwood products. With useful lives spanning generations, furniture, flooring, cabinetry and trim crafted of American hardwoods act as an additional carbon store for many decades.


American hardwoods are very energy efficient. The process of converting wood into usable building products requires considerably less energy than most other materials. Furthermore, much of the energy needed to produce American hardwood products is bio-energy. A 2007 study of 20 hardwood sawmills in the North Eastern United States revealed that 75% of the energy required to manufacture kiln dried lumber derived from biomass (such as tree bark, saw dust and wood off- cuts). As a result, even less carbon dioxide is emitted when producing American hardwood lumber than when producing many recycled materials.


A preliminary assessment by the American Hardwood Export Council (AHEC) of the carbon footprint of American hardwoods from forest to European distributor suggests that carbon sequestration during forest growth of the tree will more than offset the total carbon emissions resulting from harvesting, processing and transport. The AHEC assessment also suggests that transport is a relatively minor factor in the overall carbon footprint. This is particularly true of ocean transport. Transporting American hardwoods by ship across the Atlantic, a journey of over 6000km, requires little more energy than an overland journey of 500km. In fact, even a complete circumnavigation of the world by sea (40,000km) is likely to be readily offset by the carbon sequestered in the wood product.


With such a strong story to tell, the U.S. hardwood industry has every reason to engage in efforts to increase scrutiny of the environmental impacts of materials and the transparency of supply chains. AHEC led the way in 2007 by commissioning an independent assessment of the risk of illegal and unsustainable wood entering U.S. hardwood supply chains. The report was prepared by independent consultants Seneca Creek Associates with a team comprised of well-regarded and independent experts in the field of U.S. forestry. It concludes that there can be high confidence regarding adherence to national and state laws in the hardwood sector and that stolen timber is likely to represent, at most, 1% of total U.S. hardwood production.


The authors of the Seneca Creek study also have high confidence that U.S. hardwood be considered Low Risk in all five “risk categories” of the FSC controlled wood standard. In other words, in addition to low risk of illegal logging, it is very unlikely that any American hardwood is derived from forests where human rights or high conservation values are threatened by management activities, or from forests being converted to plantations or non-forest use, or from genetically modified trees.


Building on the results of the Seneca Creek study, the American hardwood industry is a strong advocate of regulations which aim to eradicate illegal wood supplies


|88| ENVIRONMENT INDUSTRY MAGAZINE


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