TURN A BOWL TO SAVE THE TREE

A lot the wood I use in my wood turning is supplied by craft supplies and the rest is sourced from a few other company's with the same polices as them. The following is a brief insight into the company’s policies on importing trees and their approach to protecting and encouraging tree conservation.

If the United Kingdom stopped buying tropical wood it would make no difference to timber production in the tropics. Brazil, which is often the centre of environmental controversy, produces approximately 12 million cubic metres of sawn timber annually and uses 11 million itself. Our needs are dwarfed by other major importing countries in the Far East, particularly Japan.

While the UK remains a buyer, our views will be respected. It is our duty to encourage sustainable timber harvesting, particularly in those areas of the world which receive our monetary aid, who have too many mouths to feed or bodies to house. The need to improve the quality of life is paramount and it is only understanding, education and persuasion that will ensure acceptance of timber as a farmed crop like coffee or rubber.

The objective of their policies was to balance the needs for ecological conservation and economic development, and were based on rational land use and detailed resource assessment. Forest management, conservation and development are guided by Acts of Parliament.

It is of course not only timber that is produced from the forest. One in four medicines found in your high street chemist contain compounds derived from rainforest species; not to mention it being the home for centuries for tribal peoples and the natural habitat for thousands of species of animals and plants. Globally, over one billion people depend on water from tropical forests to irrigate their crops.

How can we continue to pursue our craft safe in the knowledge that the timber we work comes from a 'respectable' source?

The greatest threat is the spread of non-sustainable farming and logging. In Latin America, cattle ranchers slash and burn their way through forestation to graze cheap grade beef for export, usually ending up as burgers. In West Africa and South East Asia, loggers cut down the world's best hardwoods for such uses as chopsticks and shuttering, rarely re-planting the denuded areas.

A survey ten years ago revealed in the Japanese building industry 4 sq.m of plywood was used per 1 sq. m of concrete: each time nearly 50 percent of the plywood was new. By 1990 there had still been no appreciation of the appalling waste. On the contrary, consumption had increased and in the disposable era Japan boasts that every day 37 million pairs of exotic wood chopsticks are used and discarded. It is unfortunate that the Japanese culture teaches that nature should still be dominated by man. Commercial logging destroys over one million acres of tropical rain forest every week, that is one hundred acres every minute. Thousands more are destroyed by inappropriate industrial development.

The National Geographic Magazine recently reported that in the Brazilian province of Amazonia (holding one in five of all birds on earth), free chain saws had been distributed by way of compensating the Indians for the destruction of their homelands and to increase support from local people. Friends of the Earth advise that 40 years ago Ethiopia had 40 percent land forestation and a population of 4.5 million. Today, trees cover less than five percent of the land and the population is 40 million.

It is not too late to change the world's forestation policies. For example, West Malaysia grasped the nettle as long ago as 1978. embarking on polices to manage forests as a renewable cash crop.

Suppliers of timber must of course exercise their own conscience.

Craft Supplies is very selective in sourcing its supplies and endeavours in every respect to be ecologically sympathetic.

Now stocking over 140 species, Craft Supplies is actively encouraging the maximum re-planting for every tree felled. They have also taken timber from Australia that has formed part of a special clearance and conservation policy. By removing naturally fallen timber from an approved area, seasonal flooding will in future be averted. Additionally, forest farming does not necessarily mean the cropping of an entire tree Any good gardener can appreciate the reasoning behind the annual pruning regime. Similarly, certain branches can be selected for removal, allowing new growth and bringing more light to the vegetation below.

Over the last two years, Craft Supplies' representatives have visited forests in many parts of the world. They have witnessed the selective marking of specimens for felling, seen how, with good management, felling can be directed to minimise forest floor damage and how re-planting is implemented. They have observed destruction of forestation at its worst and tree farming at its best. The correctly managed policies can in fact improve the environment and generate wealth in deprived areas; it is up to all of us who love wood to actively encourage the research and development schemes presently underway.

This page was last updated on   22/03/2008 10:58:00