The Country Today,
an agricultural newspaper published in Wisconsin, printed an article by
landowner Dick Hall on April 16th - about the sad market situation
faced by every forest owner in the State.
Hall states, “If you take time to do the math, your annual cost of
production over a cutting cycle nearly always exceeds your per acre returns at
harvest time. When a farmer markets
hogs or grain he knows instantly what prices to expect. Timber prices are not available in the same
way.”
Trees and logs are an agricultural commodity where the
supply always has exceeded the demand, resulting in very low market
prices. Industrial globalization of the
timber market has augmented this effect in the past few decades, producing the
lowest demand ever for Wisconsin timber and very low market prices – well below
the costs of production for a landowner.
Forest owners at best receive about 1% of the value of wood products in
the stores. All the foresters, loggers,
truckers, sawmillers, etc earn a professional and profitable wage for their
efforts, but the grower and the forests are typically taken advantage of by the
Trillion dollar per year timber industry for their short term greed.
Making things worse for the forest owner are all the
government forestry programs that are supposed to help them. Hall, for the second time in two weeks also
writes about the folly of the Managed Forest Law in Wisconsin. Landowners are encouraged to enter this
property tax program by unfair high property taxes on their forest land and the
government foresters talk of “sound forest management.” It
sounds like a good thing for a landowner until they realize they must now
harvest all their “mature” trees at low market prices that don’t even begin to
cover their costs of owning and managing timber. Forest owners also find they are forced to
surrender control of their management plan, timber marking, and actual harvesting
of trees on their lands to outsider “professionals” who are there to make good
money for their work just today, leaving the landowner with a mess, damaged
lands for the future, and a pittance of income that smacks of unfairness and
abuse.
This timber market is well known by landowners while the
professional foresters keep their heads in the sand hoping no one will
notice. The situation continues due to
the dominance of a few huge corporations over the market and the government
foresters and politicians, and the bottom line compromise for everyone is that “something is better than nothing”.
Foresters as a group ignore the ethics of their profession
to sustain their own paychecks. The profession
puts out prolific propaganda on the many merits of sustainable forest
management to keep the masses of forest owners quiet and in the flock of “sheeple”
until it is their time for slaughter – to feed the industrial mills.
Foresters doing harvests for landowners typically choose to sacrifice
the whole forest for their own instant greed, when their training should have
taught them to sustainably harvest just the ‘wool’ - the annual growth, every
year for a long term regular income, and only take the “mature” harvest when
the individual loses its’ growth vigor.
Sustainable forestry to a professional forester is whatever sustains
their own paycheck. No forester could
live on the value of the ‘advice and help’ they dole out to forest owners. Cover ups are common and whistleblowers are
ignored in the forestry profession.
The timber industry takes advantage of the tree growers and
local communities in many ways, and even forces many small loggers and timber
buyers to cheat the landowner just to survive.
Fraud and timber theft are
rampant around the world with the rationalization is that “everyone does it and
if you arrest me, you will have to arrest everyone”. A few get rich at the expense of the planet
and the people and the forestry profession keeps on talking about sustainable
and green.
Everyone is afraid to talk about this – the corporations are
so powerful they control the market from top to bottom. Foresters just protect their own jobs and
growers don’t want to lose the disappointing payments – anything is better than
nothing.
Forests in this region are producing about 25% of their
potential growth due to high grade harvesting, over cutting, and neglect. Less than 1 % of forest owners actively
manage their crop in an informed and business-like
way. Growers receive about 1% of the
value of the wood products in the store, way less than their costs of ownership
and management. Forest owners know the truth.
There is an
alternative = a better way.
A hundred years ago, small business in the local community
supplied the needs using locally grown and manufactured wood products. This still works today – wood is the perfect
fuel for small business in the local economy.
Wood is simple to grow and process and sell on a small scale, we all use
wood products every day. All the tools
and methods and information are readily available today.
Wood customers can choose right now, today – to support
local small business and simply avoid the exploitation of our planet and people
by the big timber corporations. Choose
to buy local wood from small business and the demand will immediately be
decreased - to clear cut the remaining rain forests and use illegally logged
trophy wood.
Jim Birkemeier – Timber Grower
Spring Green, WI
Spring Green, WI
