Dwyer Forestry Consulting Support North American Hardwoods

North American trees like white oak, shagbark hickory, sugar maple, or red oak are a renewable resource that regenerate vigorously following either timber harvesting or natural blowdown in a forest. By harvesting the stems of mature trees, we can utilizes wood that would otherwise decay on the forest floor after a trees dies.

Hardwood products, and solid wood products in general, are green building materials. They require much less energy to manufacture than competing products made from steel or concrete. When consumers choose a wood frame house or a wood desk instead of the steel alternatives, the results are fewer greenhouse gases emitted into the air, less fossil fuels burned, fewer toxic pollutants created and less strip mining of the land.

Hardwood trees cover a large portion of the USA and southern Canada and mills and hardwood manufacturers are located throughout. Consumers can generally find a locally or regionally sourced hardwood product. Local sourcing means that transportation costs are minimized (saving you money), less petroleum is wasted in transport, and less air pollution is created.

By purchasing a local or regional hardwood product, you create markets for hardwood trees. Good markets for trees encourage landowners to properly manage their forestland as an investment, instead of clearing it for cropland or pasture. Proper forest management provides excellent wildlife habitat and cleaner streams and rivers, in addition to higher financial returns over time.

Native hardwood products are beautiful, durable, and offer great value. Here are some examples from our home:

Flooring (Made in Kentucky)- Contains 3/4", #1 common, rift and quartered red oak, 3"-7" wide and 1'-8' long planks and site finished with a popular tung oil/resin mixture in satin.

By purchasing a North American made hardwood product, you help maintain and create jobs in forestry, logging, saw milling, and wood manufacturing. Manufacturing jobs are the basis of a sound economy and support many service related jobs in towns and cities across the United States and Canada.

Hardwood products made and grown in the United States or Canada are legitimate goods and do not contain stolen material. In other words, the landowner is paid for his or her trees when they are cut. This is not the case in many other countries in the world where timber theft is extremely common due to poor law enforcement and corruption. In places like Peru and Brazil, there is documented illegal trade in genuine mahogany. In Indonesia, there is documented theft and smuggling of merbau. And in Russia, there is illegal cutting of temperate hardwoods like Russian oak and birch which supply the large flooring and furniture plants in China. These illegal goods end up in US and Canadian markets as both rough lumber and finished products. It is up to the consumer not to buy such tainted goods as many manufacturers, importers, and retailers either don't know the facts or choose to ignore them for their own financial gain.

Update (March '07)- Bowing to international pressures and wanting to keep revenues from natural resources at home by promoting wood processing, Russia has recently accounced that it will raise export duties on logs from a current 6.5% to 20% by July 2007 and eventually up to 80% by January 2009. This is good news for North American hardwoods, because it eliminates one source of below-cost raw material and will boost demand for NA logs and lumber.

Update (April '07)- Here is a great article from the Washington Post describing the illegal timber trade and how such stolen timber ends up in the USA as finished flooring and furniture sold by major consumer brands.

Update (May '08)- The Lacey Act is amended to offer greater protection of endangered or threatened tree and plant species in other countries by preventing the import into the USA of such species in wood products. This will make it harder for companies to source illegal or below cost timber from forests throughout the world and increase the value of legitimate, sustainable forests in North America.

Update (April '09)- Evidence is continuing to mount that sources of illegal or below cost timber are becoming scarce. Here is a recent article from Bloomberg.com indicating that Japan is now sourcing significantly less timber from Russia due to the continuing effects of the export duty tax and will shift back to N. American or New Zealand sources.

Update (May '09)- Here is a recent example of an enforcement action taken against a baby furniture manufacturer based primarily in China who exported to the USA using an endangered tree species from Indonesia. This country has historically had high levels of illegal timber harvesting which provides cheap wood to smugglers and wood product manufacturers in SE Aisa.

Update (Sept. '09)- Amazingly, here is an example of very low cost wood being produced in eastern Russia by "volunteer" North Korean laborers. In this case the timber is not stolen, it is just produced for next to nothing courtesy of the North Korean Communist State & workers in partnership with the Russian government and a British based company. The sad part is that such timber could be responsibly harvested with mechanized, modern equipment for only a small increase in cost and without the severe hazzards taken on by the workers (see video). In addition, who really knows if the workers get paid for their labor or are they just indentured servants of North Korea? Becasue this wood is sold to China, it probably ends up in the USA as finished consumer products.

Update (Sept. '09)- China is now buying significant amounts of softwood timber (Pinus radiata) from New Zealand to suppliment the decline from Russia. Log exports to China now make up 50% of Kiwi exports, compared to 16% 3 years ago. Read about it here. Total log exports from New Zealand were up 60% through July '09 and reported average prices were also up 22% to an eight year high! When illegal and below cost timber harvesting is restricted, demand does shift to legitimate timber sources. This bodes well for North American demand and pricing in the future.