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Why sustainably-managed eco-friendly wood is more expensive for consumers mongabay.com May 19, 2005
Sustainable management implies the maintenance of the productivity of the asset base. Thus, in theory, under sustainable forest management, logging should meet the needs of the present without compromising the continuity of the ecosystem and the goods and services that it provides. However, sustainable management implies additional costs on concessionaires, namely lower yield due to low impact harvesting, higher costs resulting from stricter standards, and reduced revenue from a different distribution of costs and revenues over time. The problem of lower timber yields in the short run under sustainable forest management is offset in the long run by a greater overall volume since the resource is replenished. Under standard forest management, the timber resource is not effectively replenished in a reasonable time frame due to damage to the resource base (the forest) and poor utilization.
To address this time horizon problem, either low interest rates are needed (nearly an impossibility because inflation is an exceedingly complex factor in monetary policy) or compensation for concessionaires that participate in such sustainable forest management schemes. Higher compensation tends to come from concessionaires being able to charge a higher price for their sustainably managed wood products. Some recent studies have suggested that reduced impact logging techniques are more economically feasible than once thought. A study by IMAZON scientists in Paragominas, Brazil found that reduced impact logging raised productivity 30%, reduced waste 78%, reduced total costs 12%, and increased revenue 19%. IMAZON scientists concluded that reduced impact logging techniques could allow a fixed area of the Amazon to be harvested indefinitely to provide the world's wood supply. Illegal loggers undermine the system by avoiding taxes and undercutting prices. Because they don't have legal title to land there is no incentive to harvest forests in a sustainable manner. Increasing forestry organizations that do adhere to national and international standards for timber harvesting are targeting these illicit operators. The American Forest and Paper Association (AF&PA) recently sponsored a report that condemed illegal logging in in the tropics. In the report, the authors found:
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