Sustainable forest management benefits people and the Planet

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

While it’s true that collecting used paper and recycling it into new products is good for the environment, there’s a catch. The wood fibers in paper can be recycled only about five times before they get too weak and break down.

That’s why we need fresh fiber harvested from responsibly managed forests, too. Using fresh fiber creates a sustainable cycle of high-quality recyclable material to continually replenish recycled fiber.

Paper could, yes that is true, also be made from Hemp and from old clothes made from natural materials but the way we make it at present is from wood fiber mostly and thus we must understand that there is absolutely nothing wrong with using wood fiber for paper when the wood for this is being grown and harvested in a sustainable manner, which it is, in most cases.

Would it not be for the paper industry many thousands – tens of thousands – of hectares of forest land would not exists and those forests could they not be used for the production of paper would end up being built upon and thus giving us even more urban and suburban developments and less green spaces.

While the predominate monoculture of trees planted for paper production may not be ideal those forests are better than not having them at all and thus people must think before making statements to the effect that paper produced from wood pulp is bad for the environment because trees are being felled for the making of the paper.

However, it is true that the production of pristine white paper can be polluting and this is where many paper mills and paper manufacturers have a long way to go still towards sustainability and reduced environmental footprint and still need to do a great deal of cleaning up of the industry.

When it comes to the management of forests for paper pulp production or for other purposes such as wood products of all kinds, as well as woodland management, sustainability is the key and the finest way, as far as woodlands for the production of wood for wood products is concerned coppice management cannot be beaten. This method, alas, does not work with coniferous woods needed for paper pulp production, as they do not grow back when cut at the base unlike many of the deciduous trees on our Planet.

A fair amount of people in the green movement believe that cutting trees is bad for the environment and that woodlands and forests do not need management. That is a fallacy, however, and especially forests that are planted by man will need continuous management in order to produce a harvest that is beneficial.

Sustainability in forestry was “invented” before the word ever made it into the vocabulary per se, and the first book on sustainable forest practices was written and published way back in the 18th century by a German forester and much of the management today, until the arrival of the mechanized timer harvesters, is still based on those basic rules and guidelines.

Saying that woods and forests do not need to be managed is like saying that one does not need farms and garden for the growing of food. Forest and woodland management is just farming on a different scale and for a different outcome, namely forest products instead of foodstuffs.

Woodlands and forests are “farmed” for all kinds of products, from firewood, over wooden kitchen utensils and furniture to the timber used in building, not forgetting paper pulp and much in between.

© 2014

Tree marking knife; the sustainable forestry tool

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

This tool, in German called Baumreisser, and produced, predominately by German and Swiss tool makers, such as Victorinox (Switzerland) and Otter (Germany), has been an important tool for the forestry worker and forester in time past.

The tree marking knife, the Baumreisser (tree ripper), was used in the past by forestry workers after a tree had been felled and the branches removed used to mark the cutting length depending on the timber grade. Foresters too used this tool in order to mark trees for removal, either small trees for thinning operations or even large trees in mature stands. Those were marked with a cross, an “X”.

It has, in recent decades, been replaced, some would say superseded, by the spray can and the paint ball gun for marking trees for felling, whether large or small, and even as a marker as to where to make the cuts in a trunk according to timber value and class.

As far as I am concerned, however, the tree marking knife cannot and should not ever be seen as superseded and replaced as spray paint is not sustainable and that for at least two reasons.

Spray paint is costly in the long run and while a tree marking knife costs up to $60, depending on quality and source, it will last a lifetime and more, if looked after. Paint, on the other hand, is costly in the long run. While a can of the stuff may “only” cost a few dollars at a time over time it will be much, much more than the cost of the tool.

The measuring staff of the woodsmen that I have encountered in years gone by in Europe used to have a built-in “bark ripper” for the purpose of marking the place where to cross cut the trunk.

The folding Baumreisser, the tree marking knife, is better though as the forester can carry that with him easily on a “patrol” and mark trees for removal as and when they are noticed.

I encountered such a tree marking knife again only recently on the Felco stand at the 2011 RHS Hampton Court Palace Flower Show when the marketing manager showed me one of which they were given boxes and did not really know what they were for.

Initially even I, as a professional forester, failed to recognize them as I had only encountered them with a fixed blade or as part of another tool and I mistook the took for a hoof knife. Shame on me, I know.

It would appear that makers – some of them at least – are in the process of divesting themselves of the stock of those tools in the – in my opinion false – belief that the end of the tree marking knife has come.

The ones that I saw (and of which I was given a box) are made by Victorinox and are, in fact, no longer shown in their range. German makers still seem to produce them though.

As far as I am concerned we will be looking for this tool in the future again once petroleum – and the pain is based on it – has become unaffordable.

As far as I am concerned the tree marking knife, the Baumreisser, is far from dead and we will find that we will be happy to still have the skills to make them when the time comes and stocks left.

© 2011