The GreenBlue Program

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The GreenBlue Program

The GreenBlue Program is one which has broad support from the U.S. Forest Service, as well as public corporations such as McDonald’s, Mars, and Staples, with the stated goal of developing a new forest sustainability tool called Forests in Focus, and using it to increase sustainability and the certified supply of wood products. Forests in Focus is a digital mapping tool which will complement the initiative for certifying family-owned forests as sustainable, and as being managed with an appropriate level of respect for conservation. Nearly 40% of the commercial wood fiber produced in the U.S. comes from family-owned forests, but only about 1% of the source forests are certified for sustainability and environmental friendliness.

Image supplied by Flickr; Distributed under CC-BY 2.0 License

Problems with certification

Up to the present, certification of family-owned forests has not been so much an issue of unacceptable management processes, as it has been an issue of the certification process itself having little benefit for owners of such assets, while also being very costly to acquire. This is why the American Forest Foundation (AFF) has joined forces with the Forest Service in backing the GreenBlue Program, so as to get all the parties together, in an effort to understand the issues hindering certification.

The group has made significant progress, beginning with discussions about how to increase forest certification, and then progressing into exploring options on how to achieve greater access for monitoring, and potentially certifying, the vast lands currently belonging to the un-certified category of forest land. It has also addressed sustainability issues on the ground floor of these operations, and has hosted discussions with brand owners who cannot secure sufficient quantities of wood from certified forests.

How GreenBlue will help supply and sustainability

The partnership of big corporations, the American Forest Foundation, the U.S. Forest Service, and the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), is paying dividends, as participants in the joint program have identified issues with the supply chain and have gained a better understanding of the importance of family-owned forests. When added to existing initiatives for certification, support for the GreenBlue Program should help bring in many more family-owned forest lands and increase certifications dramatically.

The new digital mapping tool, Forests in Focus, will help to identify gaps in sustainability wherever family-owned forest lands exist, so that such owners can be approached and assisted with obtaining certification. The hope is to involve a great many more family-owned enterprises in the certification process, so that supply chain shortages can be relieved, and so sustainable methods can be ensured on those lands where it might not currently exist.

In order to accomplish this, a vast amount of data must be gathered, correlated, and analyzed, so that the most informed decisions can be made about where to focus attention. Information on forest status, local trends, species, size, growth rates, mortality, and harvest rates must all be aggregated for analysis, so that visual depictions of the data can be developed, and then used to maximum effect by all of the participants in the GreenBlue program.

Resources:

 

Omnibus Funds the Fight Against Wildfires

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Omnibus Funds the Fight Against Wildfires

Nature’s Packaging is committed to forest sustainability and sustainably managing forests is key to maintaining healthy forests. A fix for the method by which forest fires have been funded has finally been included in the 2018 Omnibus Spending Package, which was recently signed into law by the President. Secretary of State Sonny Perdue had lobbied for modification of the way the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has been funded for firefighting ever since he took office in April 2017, and all his hard work has finally achieved success. A solution to the funding problem has been needed for several decades, and when Secretary Purdue came into office, he made it a priority, working with congressmen from both parties to finally achieve the necessary funding structure.

What’s included in Omnibus

Image supplied by Flickr; Distributed under CC-BY 2.0 License

For the period beginning in 2020 and ending in 2027, there will be an entirely new funding structure for the way forest fires are managed. Starting in 2020, there will be $2.25 billion available to the US Department of Agriculture and the Department of Interior for fighting fires. Each year after 2020, the budget allotment will increase by $100 million, peaking at $2.95 billion in the year 2027.

If all funding available in the allotment is used, it will be required of the Secretary of Agriculture to produce a congressional report documenting all the expenditures which were made for fighting fires during the fiscal year.

Improvement over the past 

This new funding package represents a significant improvement over how funding was handled in the past. Formally, a rolling 10-year average of funding was used, while the overall USFS budget stayed basically the same. However, during that period, fire seasons became longer with conditions that were worsening, so the rolling 10-year budget average kept rising.

That consumed a larger percentage of the U.S. Forest Service budget every year, which in turn mandated that the agency use funds from prevention programs in order to cover the cost of fire suppression. It was also necessary to cut a number of recreational programs, such as hunting and fishing, in order to ensure adequate funding for fire suppression.

In 2017, fire suppression costs were more than $2.5 billion, which was the highest total ever recorded, and during the height of the fire season, more than 28,000 personnel were involved with the fire suppression effort. This makes it extremely important that the Omnibus Package was approved this year, since it has been clearly demonstrated that fire seasons are becoming longer and more costly every year, at least for the present time.

How Forests Become More Fire-Resistant With Age

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How Forests Become More Fire-Resistant With Age

Conventional wisdom says that forests should become more flammable with age, and easier to burn, since they have so much more burn-able surface area and can provide so much more fuel for a fire. However, an Australian botanist named Philip Zylstrom has discovered some very interesting facts which support the opposite conclusion.

Since his study was conducted on virtually every forest fire which has occurred over the past several decades in the Australian Alps National Forest, his conclusions carry considerable weight. In essence, his research indicates that after a forest has re-grown following a wildfire, and has had two or three decades to recover, it actually becomes one of the best defenses against future fires.

Image supplied by Flickr; Distributed under CC-BY 2.0 License

Fire and forest re-growth 

The exhaustive research performed by Mr. Zylstrom actually corroborated almost all other research done on forest land after fires, in that for several years after such a fire, the affected area was far more prone to follow-up fires and more destruction. That is the point where virtually all prior research was dropped, i.e. within two or three years following a major forest fire. Zylstrom’s research though, continued well after those years, taking in the entire post-fire history of forests within the Australian Alps National Forest.

In every single case examined by Zylstrom, going back 58 years into the historical records of these forests, he found that after a burned forest had the chance to recover for between 14 and 28 years, it was much more resistant to another fire than it had been originally. It was also found to be more fire-resistant than neighboring forests which had never been burned, and never had the chance to re-grow.

The case of the ash

One particular example which impressed Zylstrom were the ash forests contained within the Australian Alps. After suffering a devastating forest fire, they usually recovered quickly, with a whole body of fresh growth and new saplings to re-populate a stricken area. For several years, all that new growth would be powerfully impacted by any new wildfire blowing through the region, and it did indeed become much more susceptible to successive fires.

However, once those ash forests had time to grow substantially, they became tall enough to avoid igniting in anything but a raging fire. Then too, the stands of trees had become thinned out enough so that they did not offer such an inviting target to wind-blown fires. For many other kinds of forests, the same model holds true – greater susceptibility to fires within a few years of a big burn, but greater resistance once the re-forested trees were given a chance to rise above potential ignition points, and to thin out and avoid the tight packing which fuels fires.

What all this means is that steps can be taken to provide extra protection for old-growth forests, since they are less likely to burn, and offer an increased level of resistance to the possibility of being consumed in a raging forest fire.

Nature’s Packaging is committed to wood packaging sustainability and forest health is an essential component. Regularly thinning the smaller trees from forests helps prevent forest fires. The wood packaging industry makes it possible for land owners to recoup those maintenance costs as it provides a valuable outlet for the smaller logs.

Healthy Forests Healthy Communities: https://youtu.be/xliGzm6jz_g

Contrary to common belief, some forests get more fire-resistant with age: https://phys.org/news/2018-04-contrary-common-belief-forests-fire-resistant.html

 

How Trees Sweat

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How Trees Sweat

If Trees Had Sweating Glands to Cool Off From The Heat

During extreme heat waves it’s common for people to seek relief under the shade of a tree yet few of us wonder how trees themselves survive these extreme conditions. Researchers from the University of Western Sydney’s Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment grew trees under controlled climate conditions to see how trees survive these harsh conditions. They discovered that leaves have their own way to survive abnormal heat by releasing water to cool themselves off. This act is very similar to the way humans sweat in order to cool our body temperature.

Over the course of one year researchers learned that trees continuously expel water through leaves when under duress caused by extreme heat. Essentially, this is how trees survive heat waves. Before this was discovered, scientists thought that photosynthesis and water expulsion were merged processes, which means for one to happen, another also needed to happen. They learned this is not the case.

Although these trees were grown in artificial conditions, they provide accurate projections of how trees will respond during extremely hot weather conditions.  When trees under artificial conditions were exposed to the equivalent of a four day heat wave, during peak temperatures, trees stop sequestering carbon. On a larger scale, this means that forests, whether urban or rural, if exposed to extreme heat will stop sequestering carbon. Over time, if global temperatures continue to rise, this could have greater consequences on a forest’s ability to act as a carbon sink.

How Trees Cool Themselves

Under normal conditions, trees cool themselves by a process calls evapotranspiration. Evapotranspiration is the process of water evaporating from leaves when the sun’s rays hit the trees canopy. In some cases tree canopies can divert up to 60% of incoming radiation through this process. However, it can only happen when trees are healthy. If a tree is stressed due to drought or a beetle infestation then the process of evapotranspiration could be slowed or absent entirely.

In North America, more trees are planted than are harvested due to its high standards of sustainable forest management practices. When forests are healthy and sustainably managed they sequester carbon from the atmosphere to help lower global temperatures. Nature’s Packaging supports the use of sustainably sourced lumber used in wood packaging across North America.

References:

Forests Help Technology be “Greener” Than Ever

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Forests Help Technology be “Greener” Than Ever

Using Wood to Build Body Parts

Using wood to make body parts? No, we are not talking about wooden legs on pirates. When talking about using wood to build body parts we’re referring to nanocellulose. Nanocellulose are simply nano-structured cellolose that are used in common household products like paper, cardboard, food, and even medical application. Scientists all over the world know well that the increased use of bio-based products are the key to a sustainable society. Now it seems that nanocellulose from wood fibers might also be used to regenerate human body parts.

The Norwegian scientists at research institute RISE PFI are on the verge of discovering technology that will allow them to make human “body parts” out of nanocellulose. Nanocellulose used to form tiny scaffolds would be placed inside a human body along with nutrients and stem cells from the patient allowing body tissue to regenerate. The idea behind this is to help the body sustainably and effectively regenerate itself. This Since the method relies entirely on natural resources it would also bring a major boost to green-friendly industries and might give more hope to implementing other green technologies.

Biobased Products and Their Part in the Modern Economy

Biobased products are rapidly taking more space on the market since political climate, in general, is becoming friendlier towards green technologies. For example, the EU has implemented many policies related to biobased products that reprimand polluting industries and incentivize cleaner industries.

Biobased products are fully or partially made from materials of biological origin. They are derived from renewable resources that are widely available and biodegradable which makes them a crucial part of a sustainable economy.

Nowadays there is a political consensus on the urgent need to fight climate change by putting biobased products to the front of the market. For these products to thrive, they must be economically viable. Some believe that an overall change in customer behavior is needed to generate more widespread use. Following the trend of reusing resources and allowing them to stay in use as long as possible has given birth to what we call a circulatory economy. Its main aim is to help bring sustainability to a modern economy by creating profitable, desirable, and renewable products.

Nature’s Packaging is committed to the use of sustainably sourced lumber in wood packaging. When forests are sustainably managed they sequester carbon from the atmosphere to help fight climate change and protect our planet’s valuable resources.

References:

  1. https://www.dw.com/en/wood-to-build-human-body-parts-and-other-bio-innovations/a-42244780
  2. https://ec.europa.eu/growth/sectors/biotechnology/bio-based-products_en
  3. https://www.cen.eu/work/areas/chemical/biobased/Pages/default.aspx
  4. https://futurism.com/new-biodegradable-computer-chips-are-made-from-wood/
  5. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/these-new-computer-chips-are-made-from-wood-180955471/

Fungal Enzymes Key to Using Woody Biomass in Biofuel

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Fungal Enzymes Key to Using Woody Biomass in Biofuel

Global economies are growing due to the heightened demand of renewable energy in the form of solar, wind, and biofuels. With respect to converting woody biomass into biofuels, technology has struggled to develop a cost effective and efficient method of use, until now.

Biofuels Basics

The two most popular biofuels in transportation today indeed are ethanol and biodiesel. Ethanol is a well-known alcohol and biodiesel is a combination of alcohol (usually methanol) and some biomass. The predominant use of ethanol is as a blending agent with gasoline to boost octane and reduce air pollutants. Biodiesel is mostly used as an additive that mitigates polluting effects or as a renewable fuel for diesel engines. Researchers are also investigating ways to produce transportation fuel from microalgae which can create biomass more effectively and with minimal effects on the environment.

Image supplied by Flickr; distributed under CC-BY 2.0 License
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The process of converting wood into fuels so far is expensive and energy-consuming, and answer to these inadequacies just may lie in fungi. The cellulose in wood is difficult to break down which is one of the reasons why converting woody biomass to biofuel is so expensive. In nature, fungi have natural mechanisms to break down wood into energy. Researching these mechanisms uncovered fungal enzymes that contain copper and copper is now widely used in the process of decomposing other forms of biomass. These enzymes could potentially be used on a larger scale to convert woody biomass into biofuels. Scientists now believe that these discoveries have brought us closer to converting forest waste into a high value commodity.

Nature’s Packaging is committed to the use of North American sustainably sourced lumber on wood packaging. North American forests are sustainably managed and the increased use of sustainably sourced wood products contributes to the fight against climate change. Developing sustainable high value uses for wood waste from forest helps ensure that forests will thrive and continue to sequester carbon form the atmosphere.

References:

New Forest Management Practices Increase Carbon Sequestration

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New Forest Management Practices Increase Carbon Sequestration

Greenhouse gases, also referred to as GHG, impact the Earth’s atmosphere by trapping heat within it. One of those greenhouse gases is carbon dioxide. When forests are healthy and sustainably managed, they sequester carbon from the atmosphere. This helps to counteract the impact greenhouse gases have on our planet. Nature’s Packaging supports the use of sustainably sourced North American lumber for wood packaging

The recently signed deal between Haliburton Forest & Wildlife Reserve and Bluesource Canada looks to bring new hope to managing greenhouse gas emissions by sustainably managing 100,000 acres of forest in Ontario, Canada. The forest presently sequesters approximately 8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide and with their partnership with Bluesource Canada, they hope to increase this amount by 75,000 tonnes per year. This will be accomplished by increasing the maturity of trees harvested (rotation times), improving the health of the trees, and harvesting less than the annual growth of new trees.

Many new practices tailored to the type of the forest will be applied, including the “single-tree selection system” and the “uniform shelterwood system.” Single-tree selection is a method that prioritizes the elimination of sick trees that most probably will not survive or grow past the aspired maturity. That way, single-tree selection enhances the overall health and condition of the forest over time. It might be a low-impact harvesting technique but is the favored approach for promoting the growth of shade-tolerant species like the sugar maple and is intended to maximize carbon sequestration for this kind of forest.

Harvesting timber and promoting new growth is believed to be best achieved by using the uniform shelterwood system. In this practice, the larger and more dense parts of the forest are thinned. This creates greater gaps in the canopy, which is intended to allow more light to pass through the canopy and onto the forest floor. This practice will promote new growth of shade-intolerant species of trees like White pine, Red oak, and Black cherry.

The combination of these methods promotes diversity in the forest and over time is expected to sequester 75,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

References:

Forests in the Philippines Benefit Local Communities

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Forests in the Philippines Benefit Local Communities

The planet’s forests are necessary for supporting a healthy biosphere and healthy economies. In addition to the positive impacts forests have on climate change, they also support economies and peoples’ livelihood. When forests are sustainably managed they become renewable resources that can continue providing jobs and resources for communities around the planet.

Forests that are certified through programs approved by the United Nations are sustainably managed. This means that trees are replanted after they are harvested so that forests will continue to thrive and will always provide humans with valuable resources and raw materials.  In developed countries like the United States and Canada, more than 250 million acres of forests are certified. However, research conducted by the United Nations Environment Programme estimates that only 10 percent of forests worldwide are certified. The demand for certified lumber seems to outpace the supply.

How Forests Help Developing Countries

In underdeveloped rural communities, like in the Philippines, people rely on the forests for financial income.  According to the research in the article Understanding the Role of Forests in Supporting Livelihood and Climate Resilience, about 7% of the annual income of these rural communities is generated by selling forest resources such as bush meat, fish, charcoal, bamboo, and other byproducts.  Poorer communities rely more heavily on forests to provide residents with what they need.

In tropical climates, floods have devastating effects yet forests can be a primary source of protection against floods. According to the article Role of Forests in Supporting Livelihood and Climate Resilience, floodwaters in watersheds can be reduced by up to 47% during the wettest months of the year. Thick forest cover will also generate better water yields during the driest months of the year and will protect land from erosion.

International certification programs protect forests so that they’ll always be able to provide economic and environmental benefits to people and civilizations. Unfortunately, in developing countries, it can often be more profitable to clear-cut rainforests to use the land for things like agriculture instead of preserving the forest for sustainable use. Nature’s Packaging is committed to the use and re-use of sustainably sourced lumber for wood pallets and packaging needs. Giving purchasing preference to sustainably sourced wood pallets is an ethical way to protect forests and the local economies created by them.

References

United Nations Supports Using Sustainably Sourced Wood Products

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United Nations Supports Using Sustainably Sourced Wood Products

More and more organizations, businesses and even individuals are pitching in when it comes to preserving, protecting and managing forests.  The United Nations Forum on Forests (UNFF) previously made headlines when they launched the UN’s first strategic plan for forests in January 2017.  The drafted Strategic Plan for Forests includes six voluntary Global Forest Goals which forest organizations hope to reach by 2030.

  • Increase forest area by 3% across the globe
  • Increase in use of forest products from sustainably managed forests
  • Implement sustainable forest management plans worldwide by 2020
  • Eliminate poverty for people dependent on forests
  • Develop new financial resources that support forest growth and conservation
  • Increase and conserve protected forest areas
  • Grow the number of countries that participate in these goals worldwide

The goals are to reverse the loss of forest cover across the globe, promote economic, social, and environmental incentives tied to forest growth, grow the percentage of sustainably managed forests worldwide, develop financial resources to attain these goals, promote frameworks that governments can use to implement these programs, and raise the efforts of cooperation of forest related issues among governments.

Nature’s Packaging is committed to the use of sustainably sourced lumber for wood packaging products. The rate of deforestation in North American forests has essentially been zero for decades, thus aiding in the goals set forth by the UNFF special session in January of 2017. Not only does using sustainably sourced lumber preserve forests but wood pallets are recyclable and recycling wood pallets helps fight climate change. Our carbon calculator estimations are based on the EPA Waste Reduction Model for dimensional lumber and it supports these facts. It shows that recycling 100 wood pallets saves 2.81 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each month. This is the equivalent of taking 10 cars off the road! For more information visit the link below to our carbon calculator.

Resources

Togolese Women Use Technology to Conserve Forests

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Togolese Women Use Technology to Conserve Forests

Togo is a small but proud country nestled between Ghana and Benin in West Africa and is one of many countries participating in the REDD+ program. REDD+ is a program overseen by the United Nations and it helps participating countries to reduce carbon emissions caused by deforestation.

Brigitte Ackapo-Addra of Togo recently discovered that there was a major imbalance when it comes to gender equality in forest conservation.  She felt that women weren’t being included in REDD+ related decisions pertaining to forest conservation in her country even though they use and depend on their forests for valuable resources like all Togolese.

She subsequently founded Le Consortium Femmes REDD+ Togo to bring female members across the five regions of Togo together to make decisions regarding sustainable forest management in her country. However, she quickly realized that it would be difficult for women across her country to meet regularly so they use WhatApp to host their meetings, share important and urgent information, and host trainings.

WhatsApp is a cross-platform VoIP and instant messaging service. It allows users to send text messages, make phone calls, and share video and other media on mobile devices. In 2014 WhatsApp was purchased by Facebook and as of February 2017 has 1.2 billion users globally.

Brigitte Ackapo-Addra’s WhatsApp group participants are between 30 and 60 years old and there are more than 60 members. Her group helped organize an awareness tour to promote the use of improved cook stoves and limited charcoal use in 60 different communities. It was estimated that the tour reached 7,000 women and 300 men in Togo. Ackapo-Addra was promoted to represent women in Togo’s National REDD+ Committee, the highest decision making body for REDD+ in the country.

Nature’s Packaging is a North American initiative committed to the use of wood pallets and crates from sustainably sourced lumber. We support the the growth of sustainably managed forests worldwide and the advancement of technology to promote it.

Resources

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