A rally aimed at highlighting what organizers say are weak logging laws in Oregon will be held Tuesday, March 20, outside the main entrance to the International Mass Timber Conference.
The third annual conference is expected to draw elected officials, city planners, architects, academics, engineers and timber industry leaders from around the globe. It is scheduled for March 20-22 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland.
Oregon Wild, the environmental group behind the rally, says it wants visitors to know that some of the Oregon wood products being promoted as green during the conference are anything but.
Activists plan to display banners and posters that show images of industrial clear-cuts and distribute fact sheets that outline how they say Oregon forest practices are harming rural drinking water sources and destroying fish habitat and biodiversity across the state.
PHOTOS: A bird's-eye view of Oregon's clear-cuts
The March 20 rally will be held from 5 to 7 p.m. The group is also hosting its own “Responsible Forestry Forum” directly across the street from the conference, at 500 NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., from 6 to 8 p.m. March 21. Presenters will discuss the impacts of industrial logging on rural Oregonians, as well as focus on eco-friendly foresters who have found ways of harvesting wood products with less impact on wildlife habitats and watersheds.
One focus of Oregon Wild’s advocacy efforts is a popular topic at this year’s International Mass Timber Conference: Oregon’s growing cross-laminated timber industry.
Formed when multiple layers of lumber are fused together under high pressure and temperatures, this wood product offers a more sustainable alternative to concrete and steel in high-rise construction.
In Portland, Mayor Ted Wheeler has championed the use of this product, investing $6 million in public funds toward the construction of The Framework building in the Pearl District. At 12 stories, it will be one of the nation’s tallest building made with cross-laminated timber, and will house 60 affordable units for low-income renters.
Wheeler is scheduled to give a keynote address during the final day of the timber conference, where he’ll discuss the history and future of the timber industry in Portland.
Oregon Gov. Kate Brown has also thrown her weight behind the promotion of cross-laminated timber, with the intent of boosting rural economies. The state has loaned $100,000 to Southern Oregon company D.R. Johnson Lumber, the first supplier of cross-laminated timber in the U.S., for a new production line. The state has also invested thousands in the development of the production process and a design competition aimed at encouraging more developers to use the new structural wood product.
But local environmental groups have pointed out that the process of making cross-laminated timber emits toxins into the air and that the wood used to make the product is harvested from industrial clear-cuts.
For the product to be as green as its proponents say it is, Oregon Wild argues it should be sourced from forests certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. These forests are held to higher standards than other private forests, which are governed by the Oregon Forest Practices Act.
Oregon has the fewest FSC-certified acres of the three West Coast states, and many millions fewer acres than states with the most certified acres, according to FSC data.
A spokesperson for the certification council said this is likely because states with laws that more closely mirror FSC standards tend to have more acres that qualify for certification. In Oregon, forest protection laws are not as stringent as they are, for example, in California.
FURTHER READING: Is it time for a cultural shift in how we think about logging, forests?
Earlier this month, Oregon Wild and Audubon Society of Portland met with the mayor’s staff, advocating for Wheeler to address their concerns about lumber sourcing during his speech at the timber conference.
“If the city is going to use public money to subsidize the use of CLT (cross-laminated timber) in buildings, that money should be tied to the wood coming from sustainable sources,” wrote Steve Pedery, Oregon Wild’s conservation director, in an email to Street Roots. “Subsidizing CLT projects if the wood is coming off industrial clear-cuts is not green, and it is not in keeping the values of most Portlanders.”
Pedery said that while there are dozens of panels on various topics during the three-day timber conference, “not a single one is devoted to the importance of getting the wood from environmentally sustainable sources. … It would send a powerful signal if Mayor Wheeler used part of his speech to address this issue, and speak to the need for CLT wood to come from sustainable forests managed to FSC standards (or better).”
Wheeler’s chief of staff, Michael Cox, said the mayor will likely touch on “the sustainability question” during his speech at the conference; however, it’s too early for the city to consider policy around sourcing requirements for cross-laminated timber in publicly funded projects.
“CLT is a new technology, and there are some projects in the pipeline that are going to demonstrate the efficacy of the technology, and as the technology matures and develops, of course, there’s an appropriate place in the conversation about how to improve it, but what we’re looking for right now is a proof of concept.”
FURTHER READING: Logging or restoration? How today’s timber wars are playing out in Portland’s backyard
Brad Kahn, communications director at the Forest Stewardship Council, said the clear-cuts in FSC-certified forests are limited to 40 acres, whereas the industry standard is to clear-cut about 300 to 400 acres because that makes the most sense economically. Additionally, in an FSC-certified forest, trees must be left standing in a clear-cut so that it mimics a naturally occurring forest clearing.
Kahn explained the size of buffers along streams and the number of streams that qualify for protection is another big difference, with more buffers and larger areas of trees left standing to protect streams in FSC-certified forests.
The third major difference is that in an FSC-certified forest, the use of many herbicides and pesticides is banned. This includes atrazine, which is banned in Europe but is the second-most-frequently used chemical in U.S. forestry, he said. It can alter hormonal systems and has been shown in animal studies to affect organ development.
“In general, clear-cuts and chemicals go hand-in-hand,” Kahn said. “Our default position is no chemical use unless you can make a case for why a given chemical is better than whatever the alternative is.”
The Forest Stewardship Council was established in 1993 to incentivize ecologically sound forest practices following the U.N. Rio Earth Summit a year earlier, where deforestation was identified as a global issue. Today there are nearly 500 million FSC-certified acres spanning 85 countries.
FURTHER READING: Clear-cutting moves up to No. 1 emissions source in Oregon
Whether Oregon has enough FSC-certified acres to support a growing cross-laminated timber industry, however, has not been determined.
D.R. Johnson Lumber’s laminator facility in the southwestern Oregon town of Riddle is the nation’s primary manufacturer of cross-laminated timber. D.R. Johnson did not reply by press time to a request for information about its sourcing for cross-laminated timber, but it does use FSC-certified lumber in some projects.
Two Oregon Wild members living in the area near the D.R. Johnson Lumber laminator facility, however, followed a logging truck to and from the mill earlier this month. They photographed the clear-cuts where they say they saw the D.R. Johnson trucks retrieving logs.
Whether these particular logs were used to create cross-laminated timber is not known, said Jason Gonzales, Oregon Wild’s forest and watershed campaign organizer.
“We are doing the best we can to make connections, but we have gaps,” Gonzales said.
Earlier this month, Oregon Wild re-launched its “Welcome to Oregon, Home of the Clear-cut” campaign. Ads showing clear-cut landscapes are posted on TriMet buses and across a MAX train. The campaign was timed to coincide with the International Mass Timber Conference, and Oregon Wild hopes conference attendees will notice the giant clear-cuts as they roll past.
Email Senior Staff Reporter Emily Green at emily@streetroots.org. Follow her on Twitter @greenwrites.
Who has the most FSC-certified acres?
Worldwide: 494 million Forest Stewardship Council certified acres spanning 85 countries
West Coast: California has 1,708,887 FSC-certified acres; Washington, 373,361; Oregon, 214,055
States with none: Idaho or Montana
States with the most: Wisconsin, 7 million FSC-certified acres; Minnesota, 6.3 million; Maine, 4.6 million; Michigan, 4.1 million
Canada: Has one-third of the world’s FSC-certified acres
Source: Forest Stewardship Council