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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 16, 2018)
Street Roots • March 16-22, 2018 News FORESTS, from page 4 would send a powerful signal if Mayor Wheeler used part of his speech to address this issue, and speak to the need for CLT wood to come from sustainable forests managed to FSC standards (or better).” According to Wheeler’s Chief of Staff Michael Cox, the mayor will likely touch on “the sustainability question” during his speech at the conference, however, it’s too early for the city to consider policy around sourcing requirements for cross-laminated timber in publicly funded projects. “CLT is a new technology, and there are some projects in the pipeline that are going to demonstrate the efficacy of the technology, and as the technology matures and develops, of course, there’s an appropriate place in the conversation about how to improve it, but what we’re looking for right now is a proof of concept.” Brad Kahn, communications director at the Forest Stewardship Council, said the clear-cuts in FSC-certified forests are limited to 40 acres, whereas the industry standard is to clear-cut about 300 to 400 acres because that makes the most sense economically. Additionally, in an FSC- certified forest, trees must be left standing in a clear-cut so that it mimics a naturally occurring forest clearing. Kahn explained the size of buffers along streams and the number of streams that qualify for protection is another big difference, with more buffers and larger Who has the most FS&certified acres? WORLDWIDE: 494 million Forest Stewardship Council certified acres l l areas of trees left standing to protect streams in FSC-certified forests. The third major difference is that in an FSC-certified forest, the use of many herbicides and pesticides is banned. This includes atrazine, which is banned in Europe but is the second-most-frequently used chemical in U.S. forestry, he said. It can alter hormonal systems and has been shown in animal studies to affect organ development. “In general, clear-cuts and chemicals go hand-in-hand,” Kahn said. “Our default DOUGHNUT WORD JUMBIE EM LPA IPLF z-S M EOHR - 0 Z Z Which doughnut is named a fte r \ ^ E lv t s Presley's entourage? ASMMOI □ □ z □ Print answer here 0 STATES WITH THE MOST: Wisconsin, 7 million FSC-certified acres; Minnesota, 6.3 million; Maine, 4.6 million; Mich CANADA: Has one-third of the world’s FSC position is no chemical use unless you can make a case for why a given chemical is better than whatever the alternative is.” The Forest Stewardship Council was established in 1993 to incentivize ecologically sound forest practices following the U.N. Rio Earth Summit a year earlier, where deforestation was identified as a global issue. Today there are nearly 500 million FSC-certified acres spanning 85 countries. Whether Oregon has enough FSC- certified acres to support a growing cross- Page 5 laminated timber industry, however, has not been determined. D.R. Johnson Lumber’s laminator facility in the southwestern Oregon town of Riddle is the nation’s primary manufacturer of cross-laminated timber. D.R. Johnson did not reply by press time to a request for information about its sourcing for cross- laminated timber, but it does use FSC- certified lumber in some projects. Two Oregon Wild members living in the area near the D.R. Johnson Lumber laminator facility, however, followed a logging truck to and from the mill earlier this month. They photographed the clear- cuts where they say they saw the D.R. Johnson trucks retrieving logs. Whether these particular logs were used to create cross-laminated timber is not known, said Jason Gonzales, Oregon Wild’s forest and watershed campaign organizer. “We are doing the best we can to make connections, but we have gaps,” Gonzales said. Earlier this month, Oregon Wild re-launched its “Welcome to Oregon, Home of the Clear-cut” campaign. Ads showing clear-cut landscapes are posted on TriMet buses and across a MAX train. The campaign was timed to coincide with the International Mass Timber Conference, and Oregon Wild hopes conference attendees will notice the giant clear-cuts as they roll past. emily@streetroots.org; Twitter @greenwrites
