0552-A1
Deborah Gangloff[1]
Forests across the globe, both urban and rural, are in need of restoration. The most effective and efficient way to restore these lands is to value the ecological, social and economic benefits of these forests, and secure investments to create a new forest industry that is based on a restoration economy. This new industry would provide training and career development for displaced woods workers, inner city youth, and disadvantaged and minority people. There are many examples that justify the value of healthy forest ecosystems, in monetary terms, and those companies and businesses that will benefit most from the restoration should invest in the creation of this new forest industry.
While some forests in the world are thriving, in many places forests are in great need of restoration. For instance, in the American west, many of our forests have grown too thick with small trees, which increases the risk of catastrophic wildfire and hampers tree growth. Our urban forests, both in the United States and abroad, are tremendously valuable resources that measurably increase the quality of the environment and the quality of life for residents. However, studies by American Forests have shown that over the last 25 years, metropolitan areas have lost nearly 30 percent of their urban forests, primarily to development. This means hotter, drier, more polluted cities, and higher costs for air conditioning, pollution control, and human health ailments resulting from unhealthy air.
What is needed to address these problems is a new form of forest industry. A forest industry that develops and implements forest restoration projects to make forest ecosystems healthier. A forest industry that creates an economy that places a value on the health of a forest ecosystem, and generates investment that leaves the forest and the communities that depend on them healthier.
This new forest economy would lead the way in taking rural communities from being timber dependent to being forest interdependent. The work of American Forests and our local partners has shown that human communities can work in the forest, create an economy to sustain their cities and towns, and leave the forest healthier. We must create a profitable industry that is based on restoration. We must value the work that takes place in a forest that makes it healthier. We must learn to place monetary value on the ecological benefits humans derive from forests. We must put people to work who have forestry skills in teaching and working to restore our forests, and we must attract youth to this new industry with training and career development. There is a role for each sector of society - public and private - in making this restoration economy a reality.
In cities and towns and the surrounding countryside, our ecosystems have been disturbed and the natural cycles short circuited. The urban-rural interface lands have changed in recent decades and will change even more as these lands become developed. In both the urban and rural areas, we need a new relationship between people and the land. This relationship must be based on the best science of forest repair and improvement, and must convey a new ethic of forest stewardship that includes humans as vehicles for forest restoration.
While it is clear that forests around the world are in need of restoration, the value of forest ecosystems for social, ecological and economic benefits is unrecognized. Only in recent years has research done been that begins to place a monetary value on these benefits. The challenge of measuring the value of forest ecosystems for the health of people and the environment is just now being addressed, and there is a long way to go. The Heinz Center issued "The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems" last September (Heinz Center for Science 2002). This five-year study by 150 scientists fell short in its goal of setting the standards to measure the values of conservation projects. "About half of the data needed to assess the health of ecosystems was found inadequate for the report" according to Jon Christensen (2002).
Even less experience has been gained in actually putting these concepts into practice. One of the few well known examples is the New York Watershed project (Daily and Ellison 2002). When the people of New York City were faced with an order from the Environmental Protection Agency to build a water filtration plant that would cost between $6 and $8 billion, city planners devised a scheme to use a fraction of that investment to protect the natural water filtration system already in use: the 2,000-acre forested watershed upstate of the city. By investing $1.5 billion in protecting that watershed, the city saved many billions of dollars, educated its citizens about where their drinking water originates, and proved that forests can provide valuable resources besides timber.
The years 2002 and 2000 were record-breaking fire seasons. While there is some disagreement on the causes that led up to the large number of wildfires across the west, many agree that human intervention played the major role. Having fought fire in these ecosystems for 80+ years, the result is forests crowded with too many too small trees and too much combustible fuel collected on the forest floor. We now understand better the role of fire in these forest ecosystems and the consequences of our fire policy during the 20th century. In addition to changing our management regime, we need to invest in restoration that includes prescribed burns and clearing of hazardous fuel from the forest floor.
What is also needed is a way to pay for this investment in a healthier forest. Community based forestry may lead the way towards that investment. In many small towns across the American west, people are paying a high price for the reduction in timber harvests since the 1980s. Community groups concerned about the loss of their local economy and jobs have formed to address these problems. Grassroots groups made up of environmentalists and loggers, shop keepers and politicians, housewives, students and bureaucrats, were founded when town residents recognized the source of their social problems. Increased crime, domestic violence, child abuse and suicide were the telling symptoms of these towns’ fading economies. These communities, long dependent on timber for their living, now needed to find a way to make a living from the forest, while leaving the forest healthier.
Can profitable products be made from the small diameter trees that needed to come out of the forest? Can the alternative forest products, such as mushrooms and pine cones, become a large enough part of a town’s economy to support that community?
What was needed first was for these community groups to have a voice in national policy development. Natural resource policies and decision-making at the national level have failed to include the perspectives and ideas of local communities, effectively barring them from the political process and frustrating their attempts at creative problem-solving (Gray 1998). The community based groups are, however, finding a way to strengthen their role while protecting the rights of all Americans. And there have been major successes.
Organizations and companies in California are finding that they can harvest small diameter trees and mill them to make flooring; and they can do it for a profit. The high quality of the old, but small Douglas firs makes it the perfect material for floors. Small diameter materials can also be profitability used for alternative houses, such as hogans on the Navaho and Hopi reservations, and for chipping for pulp and paper. These small scale successes bode well for the creation of a new forest industry that can profitably operate in the long term. The dream is for small diameter logs to be transported to local mills to become furniture, paneling, flooring, posts, poles or logs for small buildings. Wood chips could be delivered to a co-generation plant where they’re burned into gas that powers a motor that turns an electric turbine. This electricity passes to the woodworking plant and throughout the neighborhood of homes (Matthews 2002).
A similar need for restoration is evident in our major metropolitan cities. With an overall loss across most US cities of 30 percent tree canopy in the last 25 years, Americans are losing tremendous ecological services. While cities are often thought of as un-natural, they are now recognized as the most environmentally-friendly way to support the world’s population. The number of mega cities in the world will rise from 20 today to 36 by the year 2015, and this trend gives hope for balancing the needs of people with the capacity of the environment to support them (Revkin 2002).
Trees are city assets that provide city leaders with untapped opportunities to reduce the costs of managing the city infrastructure. Greener cities are measurably better in terms of air, water, energy and public health needs. Trees are non-structural stormwater management devices, air purifiers, and air conditioners. The benefits trees provide are not just abstract ideas envisioned by environmentalists, but quantitative assets that can be measured using technical tools, given a monetary value, and placed on a budget sheet. Trees are legitimate assets that should be documented for Government Accounting Standard Board Statement 34 (GASB34) reporting (Moll 2002).
While almost everyone knows that a healthy and abundant tree canopy over the city is desirable, and some people even know that trees reduce stormwater management costs and improve air quality, the critical question for asset management is "what are trees worth?" Through the work of American Forests with USDA Forest Service and Natural Resource and Conservation Service scientists, the ecological benefits of urban tree canopies can be calculated using scientific and engineering formulas. The calculations are complex, but thanks to computer and Geographic Information Systems technology the data can be accessible to city managers and the general public.
Scientific research and long term engineering studies document the work trees do to utilize the potential of natural cycles of water, air, and energy. Trees reduce the movement of stormwater and cut peak flow rates that cause flooding and tax stormwater sewers. Large metropolitan areas could easily save hundreds of millions of dollars by increasing their tree cover by as little as five percent. Studies by American Forests estimate that the existing city tree cover in the United States provides over $400 billion in storm water services to urban areas (American Forests 2000). Cities spend billions of dollars to control flooding, prevent erosion and filter and treat water runoff. By maximizing existing green resources, cities can reduce maintenance and building costs and develop more sustainably.
Trees can also reduce urban heat island temperatures, improve air quality, and reduce energy consumption. Trees improve air quality by reducing pollutants like sulfur and nitrogen as well as trapping particulate matter and removing it from the air. Hot summer city air not only produces discomfort and results in increased energy usage to cool buildings, but also results in air quality problems like smog; formed when airborne chemicals mix at high temperatures. Trees cool urban areas indirectly as leaves evaporate water and air moves under shaded tree crowns. Trees cool homes and buildings directly by shading and can save homeowners as much as 20 percent on their energy costs for air conditioning. There’s also less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when energy consumption is reduced.
The value of trees for air, water, and energy-saving services has become priceless in recent years as cities have had to meet Environmental Protection Agency standards for air and water quality. Non-attainment cities incur fines and loss of federal funding for capital improvement projects. Increased air quality also has human health benefits. Less asthma in urban children would save millions of dollars and countless years of human suffering. Studies from the University of Illinois have shown that urban neighborhood areas with trees have reduced crime, domestic violence and improved learning in children with attention deficit disorders (Kuo and Sullivan 2001). Research at Texas A&M has shown quicker recovery rates and fewer pain killers required for surgery patients whose hospital rooms have a view of trees (Ulrich 1984). It is clear that maintaining a healthy tree cover is a good financial, environmental, and social investment for cities, and a cost-effective and multi-beneficial way to comply with environmental regulations.
As cities increasingly understand the connection between the natural environment and urban sustainability, there exists great potential for the creation of an urban ecosystem workforce dedicated to sustainable land management. Managing urban landscapes for maximum environmental benefit will require a new kind of "green collar" worker who possesses interdisciplinary skills in urban forestry, landscape architecture, engineering and other knowledge sets (Walker 2002).
In Baltimore, Maryland, American Forests and local non-profit Civic Works are teaming to create a job training pilot program for the Environmental Protection Agency. Civic Works will train 60 people from inner city Baltimore’s underserved communities in brownfields cleanup and environmental restoration work. In Seattle, Washington, local partners have developed and implemented a stewardship education program, and an apprenticeship program is underway for graduates of the field crews that have been conducting projects along Seattle’s Mountain to Sound greenway.
The question then becomes, how can we invest in our urban and rural forests to make them healthier while creating a new economy? What is needed from the public and private sectors for this new industrial revolution? Can we build a new forest industry that will provide jobs for skilled workers, educate and train urban and rural youth for careers in natural resources and this new industry, and create a healthier environment?
The first obstacle, perhaps, is admitting that there is a need for restoration. The political and social pressures to conduct business as usual, are powerful. We must let the data speak for themselves. It is clear from assessments of tree canopy in major cities and examples such as the devastating losses from our recent wildfire seasons, that our public forests - rural and urban - are in need of restoration. The first target for an investment must be the government agencies that have the mandate to care for these forests in trust for the public. These agencies must change from being janitors to being restorers. They have the data and the expertise to plan and implement restoration projects. There needs to be an investment made from their budgets in restoration and restoration projects.
While the obvious agencies to make these investments are those that deal in natural resource management, there are many others that would reap enormous cost savings from this restoration economy. Agencies that deal with urban housing, crime; those that regulate medical centers, hospitals and the insurance companies; and those that oversee educational services must all take on the building of a restoration industry as part of their mandate. These government agencies will significantly reduce their costs in years ahead if a restoration economy is built that improves the environment, makes our cities and towns healthier, and creates a dedicated workforce of restoration experts.
In the policy arena, the government must also take the lead in building a trading system that credits the restoration work done with the benefits it provides. Company incentives in the form of credits for support of restoration projects, like tree planting for carbon credits, will create an entrepreneurial atmosphere for private sector investment in restoration.
Non-profit organizations also have an important role. Nonprofits change public opinion and change public policy. As change agents they can leverage the support of the private sector in building a new restoration economy. At American Forests and with our partners across the globe, we have found companies willing to help support good restoration work to improve our public lands. The nonprofit sector should take the lead in gathering the data to present the case for scientific restoration and take the lead in reaching out to decision-makers and the public. Educational institutions and organizations must include curricula of restoration to attract students to learn about and work in the natural resource field as restoration technicians. They must be trained to be knowledgeable in ecology and understanding the natural cycles, so they can develop and conduct projects that restore the land for future generations.
Corporations and the business sector, including the traditional forest industry, must be a part of the development of this new forest economy. In terms of expertise, start-up development, and investment, the forest industry, for instance, has a great deal to bring to a new restoration economy. However, other industries that will benefit most from ecological restoration should be the major investors. The homeowner insurance companies that will save on reducing fire risk in rural communities should contribute to this new industry. Medical insurance companies that will pay less for patients because they leave the hospital sooner and need less medication, should invest in a restoration economy. Mortgage companies that will benefit from reduced crime and domestic violence in communities should be behind this industry.
To date, there has been no quantification of the job potential and market impact of a "green collar" workforce. National research by trade or labor organizations or by government agencies is minimal. There needs to be federal leadership and investment in job training programs for ecosystem restoration. Market research must project the size, composition, and economic impact of a green collar workforce. With a focus on community-based solutions with national and international public and private investment we can create a new industrial revolution that will help guarantee that our life-giving forest ecosystems will function better and our communities of people will be healthier in the future.
There are five steps to building a restoration economy: 1. Agree on the values of healthy, functioning ecosystems; 2. Measure and standardize those values scientifically; 3. Leverage investment from government and businesses to maintain or improve those ecosystems; 4. Support the development of green collar workforce with education curricula and field training; and 5. Provide incentives to launch new local businesses to accomplish scientifically-accurate, community-based ecosystem restoration projects.
American Forests, 2000. State of the Urban Forest 2000. Washington, DC
Christensen, Jon. The New York Times, November 5, 2002.
Daily, Gretchen C. and Katherine Ellison. 2002. The New Economy of Nature. Island Press: Washington, DC
Gray, Gerry. A Community of Hope. American Forests, Winter 1998
H.J. Heinz Center for Science, Economics, and the Environment, 2002. The State of the Nation’s Ecosystems. Washington, DC.
Kuo, F.E. and Sullivan, W.C. 2001. Environment and crime in the inner city: Does vegetation reduce crime? Environment & Behavior, 33(3), 343-367.
Matthews, Mark. When Fire and Forest Health Came to Town. American Forests, Winter 2002.
Moll, Gary. 2002. International City Management Association IQ Report on Urban Trees. International City Management Association: Washington, DC
Revkin, Andrews. Forget Nature. Even Eden in Engineered. The New York Times, August 20, 2002
Ulrich, R.S. 1984. "View Through a Window May Influence Recovery from Surgery." Science, 224: 42-421
Alice Walker. 2002. Green Collar Jobs and Ecosystem Management in Cities. Communities Committee newsletter. Hayfolk, California.
| [1] Executive Director, American
Forests, 910 17th Street, N.W., Washington, DC 20006, USA. Tel:
202/955-4500 X 232; Fax: 202/955-4588; Email: [email protected];
Website: www.americanforests.org |