I'm afraid Jim had it right John.  You did not respond to my point - and
that point was about importing tropical timber/furniture from probably
unsustainable sources.  Your comments were out of context - not for the
first time.  The issue was substitutes for decorative timbers for furniture
which were once sourced from our own forests (sustainably in the case of
Timberlands - though this is not universal - which is another irony because
they stopped the sustainable operations and unsustainable operations
continue), which now come in from one supposes are timbers sourced at lower
standards of management.  You make a claim that most furniture is wood fibre
etc.  NZ has any amount of crap wood for cheap furniture (pine, MDF etc.).
This is not what is coming in in dramatically increasing volumes.  What is
coming in is made up solid timber furniture from SE Asia.  Fact is it looks
better than pine and MDF, and if you cannot get solid rimu or NZ beech, you
will not generally go and buy MDF with a timber or plastic veneer on top.
As to affordability, even with the NZ peso we can afford any amount of
timber from Vietnam when paying them yongs (or whatever) etc.  Your
assumption that tropical timber - because it is high quality - is somehow of
comparable cost to western sources is entirely wrong.

This point about global consequences that are unsustainable has been made by
a number of REAL environmental groups in NZ (Ecologic Foundation for
instance), and for which the so-called environmental groups have no answer -
other than to make people eat cake of course.  We recently had a bizarre
incident where the Parliament buildings used imported Ivory Coast timber -
which some bright-spark marketer had called "English Tawa" (Tawa being a NZ
hardwood - to which this "English Tawa" was supposed to be similar).  When
it was pointed out that the source was not sustainable, and yet there were
Ministry of Forestry certified sustainable producers of NZ real Tawa
available the government threw a hissyfit.  They claimed that their decree
not to use any "native" timber in the building upgrade "of course" meant ANY
native timber, ANYWHERE in the world.  There were shrieks of laughter at
this incredulous spin, but nothing more than we are used to.  The PM even
said you would have to be "stupid" to interpret references in an NZ building
by an NZ government including the word "native" as refering to only NZ.  Now
this is interesting.  We are not allowed to use ANY worldwide "native"
timber in our own NZ Parliament.  Which means no timber of course.  A couple
of other extreme environmental groups have made this claim of course -
presumably encouraging finite petrochemical products or high energy
demanding substitutes like metals and concrete.  Or leave the planet of
course, humans being vermin.

To their credit the Grenn party came out and pointed out that the real issue
re the use of timber was whether it was sustainably managed or not.

Exactly!

Pity they didn't show that sort of maturity when they were trying to capture
the "save the tree" vote, and vilifying every death of an individual tree as
if it was an environmental disaster.

It would be good to discuss some of the ethical aspects of such things
without having to defend the right of humans to use resources - including
timber from their own country.  Or perhaps that is an important premise to
make explicit.

Do you, John, acknowledge that humans are part of this planet and need to
use resources, including wood?

Chris Perley

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Discussion forum for environmental ethics.
> [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of John Foster
> Sent: Tuesday, 5 June 2001 10:22 a.m.
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Jim. Please don't imply that I am a lier! Thanks
>
>
> Jim,
>
> you know that you are wrong again? The fact is that you either
> did not read
> my message or you don't know what a "wood fiber product" is.
>
> Jim:
> > In point of fact, John, I don't believe you said anything at all
> > about wood fiber products
>
> Here is the paragraph that I actually wrote which Chris took the time to
> read:
>
> "In addition we here in BC burn millions of cubic meters of small wood at
> the landings and roadsides. This is wood that could be used for
> many useful
> purposes such as furniture (in fact the Sears catalogue has solid pine
> furniture with knots that costs up to $600 per piece. The most common
> furniture now being sold is no longer solid pine or hardwood, but
> something
> called *wood fiber product* made from sawdust and some adhesive which
> essential has very little strength. This stuff does not last more
> than about
> five years often, then is thrown into landfills)."
>
> Jim, did you know what medium density fiberboard is? It is a wood fiber
> product made from sawdust, bark and so on with some adhesives. It is not
> waterproof, and there is very little strength to it. I even
> explain in depth
> what I meant. Not impressed Jim.
>
> As a moderator of this important list with 170 subscribers and getting
> smaller by day, Jim why don't you begin to practicing some
> nettiquette like
> instead of defending (or appearing to defend one list member) ask for
> clarification. Or at least read the messages in fullness. Here is what you
> responded to:
>
> > >John:
> > >I said it is a better subsitute for 'wood fiber products' like medium
> > >density fiberboard.
>
> Solid wood is much better than MDF or any other wood fiber product.
> Therefore solid pine is better...and not very many people can afford
> tropical hardwood furniture. They can afford teak furniture ...but teak is
> mostly grown in plantations, established on degraded pasture lands. They
> wood is harvested after only 20 years...This contrasts with the
> 'veridical'
> or 'vertiginous' statements that there is no substitute for old growth
> primary tropical hardwoods in the use of furniture.
>
> It is these incorrect statements that the most zealous proponents of wood
> always make to ignorant: there is no substitute for old growth rainforest
> wood, and so on...which is patently ridicolous in my opinion. Even in Peru
> the folks there use Eucalyptus for furniture. These were established only
> within the last 30 years. There is no need to even buy a rainforest tree
> anywhere in this country because in the Sierras, the is abundant groves of
> Honduran pines and Eucaplytus. These areas never had forests before....
>
> >
> Jim:
> > In point of fact, John, I don't believe you said anything at all
> > about wood fiber products.  If I'm not mistaken you were responding
> > to the point Chris made about NZ's importing furniture grade wood for
> > *furniture*.  This is the passage of yours that Chris is addressing:
>
> Jim:
>
> Are you sure you read my message?
>
> > >J.F.:
> > >As far as the idea of importing wood for furniture to New Zealand from
> > >Indonesia is concerned I have a suggestion. Why not reforest the
> > >approximately 2 million acres of degraded sheep pastures in NZ
> with fast
> > >growing pines or native species? Most of the fast growing
> radiata pine in
> NZ
> > >was established on sites where no trees grew before such as sand dunes,
> > >agriculture sites, etc., so why cut down any primary forests and put
> roads
> > >into them?  In BC here there is currently an epidemic of lodgepole pine
> bark
> > >beetle that is impacting millions of hectares of mature trees. This is
> the
> > >largest insect infestation in the history of North America and there is
> an
> > >estimated 10 -15 million cubic meters of commercial wood that will have
> to
> > >be harvested in the next two years or it will root and burn. In the
> Amazon
> > >there is an estimated 75 million hectares of degraded and deforested
> forest
> > >lands that could grow at least 150 million cubic meters per year.
> > >
> >
> Jim:
> > I read you the same way Chris reads you here--I don't see anything
> > about medium density fiberboard or wood fiber products.  The fact
> > remains (and I thought this was Chris's point, but I'm not sure
> > you've responded to it) that NZ is still faced with importing a large
> > amount of hardwood from Malasia and elsewhere, and that this policy
> > in effect simply relocates the environmental problems to other places
> > where the logging practices are not as good.
>
> Here it is again posted for your purusal, taken out of context:
>
> John:
> "In addition we here in BC burn millions of cubic meters of small wood at
> the
> landings and roadsides. This is wood that could be used for many useful
> purposes such as furniture (in fact the Sears catalogue has solid pine
> furniture with knots that costs up to $600 per piece. The most common
> furniture now being sold is no longer solid pine or hardwood, but
> something
> called wood fiber product made from sawdust and some adhesive which
> essential has very little strength. This stuff does not last more
> than about
> five years often, then is thrown into landfills)."
>