Protecting the important rain forests and also using the tropical wood for the lumber and veneer industry is a very complicated and controversial issue. Only a very insignificant number of the logs that are cut go into the wood industry. The rest of the rain forest is cleared to make way for agriculture and livestock grazing. We at Carl F. Booth along with our customers, want to be a part of the solution that enables both the protection and utilization of the tropical forests.
Farmers burning trees to clear land account for 60% of the destruction of the rain forest. Large-scale industrial or agriculture projects destroy another 30%. Just 3.9% of the total tropical hardwood extracted enters into the world timber trade. Of the 1.7 billion cubic meters of tropical hardwood extracted, only 67 million cubic meters is exported.
The fact is that the underlying causes of deforestation are poverty, inequitable land distribution, low agricultural productivity, inappropriate development, weak institutions and rapid population growth. This means that the sensible use of tropical timber is not causing or contributing to the destruction of the rain forests.
We at Carl Booth believe:
- Tropical forests will be preserved only if they are accorded economic value.
- Blanket bans and embargoes (as contrasted to selective ones), on tropical hardwood will tend to depress the value of these hardwoods and the forests that contain them. Such constraints generally diminish the economic incentives to conserve and manage these forests in the face of alternative land uses, which lead to their destruction.
- Funds obtained from products of the tropical forests must be rechanneled into managing and regenerating those forests.
- There is a need to create value in tropical woods.
- Sustainable forestry must be encouraged.
- Logging must be distinguished from clear cutting.
- We must all work together to find alternatives.
Therefore, use wood to give it ever-increasing value and plant trees to get ever-increasing supply.
We at Carl F. Booth are pleased to be one of the industry’s contributors providing support for education and reforestation in the United States and the tropics. For every transaction we have with a customer, a tree will be planted. We respectfully suggest that you adopt such a policy. For our part, it looks like we will be planting approximately 5,000 trees this year.