Trail-Blazing Foresters Spread Seeds of Gentler Tree-Cutting

Instead of denuding the land, a timber company in Paraguay saws only a few trees at a time from its 40,000 acres of jungle. Sometimes the workers use oxen to remove the logs without hurting the fragile soil.

In northern Michigan, the owner of 155,000 forested acres cuts delicately around saplings to let them grow--and won’t return to the same land until 15 years later to harvest timber again.

“We will have land to harvest forever,” said Alan Steege, head of forestry for the Ironwood, Mich.-based Keweenaw Land Assn. Ltd. “We never cut more than is growing in any given period of time.”

Amid wholesale destruction of forests from Malaysia to Siberia, a gentler method of forestry is slowly taking root. Aimed at preserving both profits and ecosystems, the new loggers blend modern and old-fashioned techniques that mainstream timber firms often shun as pricey and impractical.

The ecologically sounder practices won’t save the earth any time soon. The United Nations estimates that from 1980 to 1990, the world lost about 1.3% of its forests each year to logging, slash-and-burn farming and development. Of total tree-cutting, far less than 1% has been certified by third parties as environmentally sound.

But the trend toward what’s known as sustainable forestry is growing in response to concerns over erosion, the loss of natural habitat, global warming and other potential harm caused by pell-mell logging.

World forests certified as sustainable by the four main independent groups set up for that purpose have grown to about 15 million acres from none in 1989, when the programs first were organized, according to the largest certifier, the SmartWood program of the Rainforest Alliance environmental group.

By lightly harvesting the forest so it continues to thrive, loggers help preserve the diversity of native animals and plants and protect local jobs dependent on trees. Their methods involve selective cutting, fewer logging roads, nature preserves and plenty of time to allow forest regrowth.

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Another reason for the trend recently has emerged. As the bulldozer and buzz saw deplete global timber stands, remaining supplies of quality wood have soared in value on world markets, creating economic incentives for entrepreneurs to keep forests productive as long as possible. And ecological concern has made some consumers willing to pay more for furniture and other goods made with wood from sustainable forests.

The higher returns help offset some of the higher costs associated with sustainable forestry.

“It doesn’t cost much money to hire a bulldozer and pay someone to drive into the forest. But it does cost something to train those people, hire a planner to plan whether or not you drive your bulldozer one place or another, and make sure you cut vines before you chop it down,” said Bill Mankin, coordinator of the Global Forest Policy Project, a Washington-based environmental program.

From an economic standpoint, sustainable forestry makes the most sense in those tracts with concentrations of high quality timber--generally hardwood trees with fewer knots and interesting grain and color patterns.

In the Paraguay rain forest, for example, Sustainable Forest Systems L.P. harvests cedar, mahogany and other red and brown wood that it sells to Midwest and California furniture makers, which in turn can get $1,500 and more for a single chair.

Such dense tropical wood regrows best through natural regeneration of the forest ecosystem--a more patient process than simply reseeding the soil with trees genetically bred to grow quickly, which can reduce plant and animal diversity. Such tree plantations are widely used for managing pine and other softwood forests in the United States and other temperate climates.

“In this situation, what happens to be the right thing to do is exactly the sensible thing to do from a business point of view. And that creates a lot of opportunities,” said Jeffrey Atkin, a former New York oil futures trader who formed Sustainable Forest Systems five years ago.

Certifiers at SmartWood expect to examine the company’s forest this summer to see if it qualifies for certification.

For investors in the venture, ecological forestry represents a long-term bet that the market for wood will support rising prices. Atkin’s company is a limited partnership, meaning investors have a direct stake in its profits, expenses and risks and some say in decision-making.

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Atkin said in a phone interview from Paraguay that he has raised nearly $6 million so far from the pension fund of Buffalo, N.Y.-based National Fuel Gas Co. and an unidentified wealthy investor. The firm bought the 40,000 acres (half covered by forest), a saw mill, shed, machinery and worker houses.

Atkin said he expects to raise another $53 million by the end of the summer, aiming to eventually expand the acreage by tenfold or more and invest in other equipment and property.

The investment clearly is not for everyone; investors need a minimum of $500,000 and plenty of patience for getting back their principal.

The company says it expects a roughly 20% annual return until the principal matures in 20 years, after which the partnership plans to sell the operation to another party interested in sustaining the forest. Partners have an option to sell in 10 years.

Peter Ashtin, a Harvard University forestry professor who is an advisor to the Paraguay forest project, said that if the forest hadn’t been bought by Atkin’s company it would have been whittled away by local farmers.

“It’s totally unrealistic and I believe arrogant to make the case to protect all the tropical rain forests that exist. The pressure on land is too great.

“What we should be doing is trying to search for the means that will sustain the resource to the greatest extent possible under the realities in which we live.”