A year in Brussels here.

Thursday, July 12, 2007

From 'Cradle to Cradle', by McDonough and Braungart

In 1870, the Menominee inventoried 1.3 billion standing board feet of timber on their 235,000 acres. Since then, they have harvested nearly twice that amount—2.25 billion board feet. Considering the “clear-cutting” methods of the corporate lumber merchants you hear about, which completely strips land of its trees, you’d expect that the Menominee would have barely a single tree left, not to mention any forest wildlife. In fact, they have 1.7 billion board feet left, more than they had in 1870, and a thriving forest ecosystem.

That’s because the Menominee tend to cut only the weaker trees, leaving behind the strong mother trees and enough of the upper canopy for the arboreal animals to continue to inhabit. They have figured out what the forest can productively offer them instead of considering only what they want to take from it.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey - very cool! What's the source? -M.

7/13/2007 10:57 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

D'oh... If only I read titles. -M.

7/13/2007 10:59 AM  

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