Cutting a Tree to Save the Forest

The recent "Walk in the Woods" hosted by Swan Ecosystem Center provided a tremendous insight into some of our local wood utilization businesses. Visits to Nordique System Log Homes, Swan Valley Montana Firewood, Mountain View Log Homes and Roundwood West Corporation all provided opportunity to see how forest management can sustain the economy of our place as well as the ecosystems and the beneficial services forests provide. Tried and tested methods along with new and innovative uses for wood and wood products demonstrate the potential to return value for cutting trees and using products generated from the trees both efficiently and wisely.

Innovation in the use of wood and wood products is expanding both the importance and the opportunity to sell into new markets creating value for forest products businesses, for the communities they serve and for the important forest management work that remains to be completed.

A recent news article in one of the world's most popular and influential architecture and design magazines suggests that this will be the century that timber frame construction and large buildings made of wood become the norm. That wood will move forward replacing steel and concrete construction in many places.

Innovation in the use of wood with engineered wood products, including cross-laminated timbers, laminated veneer lumber and laminated strand lumber, will allow for massive wood buildings to become very real. Just this past September, the US Department of Agriculture awarded two grants to support the construction of a 10-story condo complex in New York City's Manhattan borough, as well as a 12-story office, retail and apartment building in Portland, Oregon using wood. A record 35-story "sky scraper" built from wood is now in the planning stages in Paris, France.

Building with wood is fast, accurate and creates beautiful spaces to live and work in. The construction time to finish a project can be 50 percent less than steel and concrete construction, fewer deliveries to the build site are needed and the workers have a more pleasant environment with less noise when surrounded by wood. Many of these buildings have components prebuilt off site and shipped in.

The energy needed to produce wood buildings is far less than concrete and steel. Wood is renewable and when produced from sustainably managed forests, will further benefit the environment by providing additional ecosystem services including clean air and water. Imagine rebuilding our cities with wood that provides higher quality urban housing that encourages people to "love" their place and want to stay there.

Included with the "Walk in the Woods" was a visit to forest fuels reduction work on several private landowner properties. These projects demonstrate it is possible to remove trees yet still have a vigorous and healthy forest that is more resilient to fire. Managing trees around homes and across the property to the boundaries improves the chance to reduce wildfire intensity and save both the structures and the forest from being reduced to ashes. It can give firefighters a chance to stay and defend a home from fire.

Also discussed on our "Walk" was the potential for using forest biomass or whole trees and parts of the tree that have no value to be removed for a product. Today most of these trees, limbs and needles become "slash" that is burned onsite or scattered back into the forest for nutrient recycling. In the very near future it is hoped that this material, now most often burned, can be converted into important products including liquid transportation fuels or other essential oils. A lot of research to develop alternative uses for biomass or slash is underway now.

All of this increased value for the products generated from thinning forests for the trees adds to the capacity to afford doing much of the work to manage the forest. The Seeley-Swan, along with much of western Montana, has had a long history of intense forest management. The results of that management have created an amazing amount of biological diversity and management opportunity across the landscape.

In light of the current condition of these forests, many of them require additional work to maintain the productive capacity they inherently have. It is possible to grow forests, use the trees for building our communities and retain the needed ecosystem services that those forests provide. If done sustainably and responsibly these forests will be productive for generations to come. Call it the growing stock imperative or, growing forests that provide a triple bottom line with multiple benefits for the environment, the economy, and the people.

Roger Marshall has been a forester in the Seeley-Swan for almost four decades. He currently manages the forest stewardship program at Swan Ecosystem Center and is chairman of the Seeley-Swan Fuels Mitigation Task Force.