Raul’s Blog

An article published this week in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat details a level headed approach to forestry. The details mentioned are a close reproduction of the practices Old-Growth Again uses to begin the restoration process of cut-over lands. It’s heartening to see this becoming more generally practiced and other restoration outfits popping up around the country.

I think once the national forests lands mentioned are restored, the forest service contracts eventually issued will in all likelihood cut at a faster rate than we are doing. Under Forest Stewardship Council guidelines mentioned, they will probably cut about 2% per year versus our 1% per year limit. This is the basic difference between Sustainable Forestry and Restoration Forestry. But, at least in the initial phase, they are both nearly identical since there is little timber that can be harvested and only the thinning, planting and soil management aspects can be addressed.

This aside, the article details a significant turning point in forest management in the Northwest.  It is hopefully the long-awaited shift in the political wars of the past 30 years that pitted ecology vs economy instead of ecology and economy as we’ve been struggling to demonstrate since 1994.

Here’s the intro to the article, with a link to read more….

(AP Photo/Jeff Barnard) In this May 15, 2009 photo, Lomakotsi Restoration Project crew supervisor Aaron Nauth stands on the stump of a centuries old tree and looks over an old clearcut that his team has thinned on the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest outside Takilma, Ore.

TAKILMA, Ore. (AP) — On a steep slope of the Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, a crew of young men with chain saws and hardhats worked their way through an old neglected clearcut, cutting brush and young trees and piling the remains to be burned later.

Freshly trained and closely supervised, the crew took care to leave behind volunteer sproutings of dogwood, madrone and huckleberry as well as the sugar pine and Douglas fir planted here 20 years ago. The pattern is designed to grow into a healthy forest less vulnerable to wildfire and better for fish and wildlife, rather than just turn out timber.

The House Hope Stewardship Project, taken off the shelf with $1.4 million from President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus package, will thin and restore 890 acres.

It’s a tiny fraction of the 60 million to 80 million acres the U.S. Forest Service estimates need it nationwide, but people here feel as if this is a start — not only to grappling with the growing threat of wildfire in a warming climate, but in healing rifts between environmentalists, the timber industry and the Forest Service that have left the national forests in limbo.

Read the full article »

Great news. The Mexican government of the state of Baja California has awarded Old-Growth Again (makers of Forever Redwood furniture) the certification of officially being a “safe enterprise” (Empresa Segura). That means we met a series of standards to maintain safe working conditions for our employees. We’re very proud of all our employees whose diligence made this possible, and we commit ourselves to continually meeting the goals of workplace safety along with exceptional quality in our hand-crafted Redwood furniture. We also offer our thanks to the government of Baja California for the recognition and support.

Raul Hernandez (CEO of Old-Growth Again Restoration Forestry, Inc.) receives the "Empresa Segura Award" (Safe Enterprise Award for Employee Safety) from representatives of the State Government of Baja California. April 1, 2009; Ensenada, Baja California.

Minnesota winter? Not a problem for a Forever Redwood swing!

Have you signed up for our email list yet? Not only will you get updates about our Restoration Forestry work and Redwood furniture, but we offer special discounts and promotions only to this list. These offers can’t be found on the site (or on this blog!). Click over to sign-up and then enjoy the latest post.

We have been shipping our “Forever Redwood” outdoor furniture sets to the toughest climates in the U.S. and Canada for over a decade now. We offer decay warranties of up to 30 years on the entire line regardless of how harsh the outdoor weather is. No other outdoor furniture line has warranties like it.

We are often asked if our sets will really hold up that long. They will. And, with a bit of TLC, they’ll last much longer.

Because of the quality workmanship and materials used, Forever Redwood sets are a bit more upfront than most of our competitors. But, you save money by NEVER having to replace them.  Besides some surface fading, you can expect your Forever set to last for decades without maintenance.  And, if you ever have a problem with a Forever Redwood product (like a tree falling on it…), just contact us and we’ll ship replacement parts to you at minimal cost.

There are 3 reasons we confidently offer the long decay warranties. First, Redwood is extremely decay resistant. Second, Forever Redwood is built the old-fashioned way using thick-timbers that are no longer available in the marketplace. And, lastly, Forever Redwood is fastened with Stainless Steel hardware.

Combining generous amounts of the highest quality lumber with the best hardware insures your furniture will last decades in any outdoor weather. Yes, Chicago winters, Florida’s summers, Arizona’s 110 degree dry heat or the stormy high and dry Colorado Rockies.

To read more about our forestry practices, please go to:
http://www.foreverredwood.com/restoration-forestry.html

To read more about our four grades of wood, please go to:
http://www.foreverredwood.com/wood.html

As always, comments and questions are welcomed.  Thank you for your interest in Forever Redwood.

This article is shared courtesy of ARA Content.

How A Forest Products Company is Making a Real Environmental Impact

Little Raulito enjoying a Forever Redwood Kid's Rocking Chair. Behind him stands a Large Vase Planter. Proceeds from the sale of Forever Redwood products go toward our Redwood forest restoration work.

(ARA) - With the growing popularity of green building practices, more companies are incorporating environmental and sustainability policies. These are all positive steps toward reducing the impact of global warming and caring for our earth. But what do you really know about a product you buy that is labeled green? Is it really environmentally friendly, or is it just a marketing scheme? And how much of a difference is it actually making?

“Green and sustainable forestry practices are a step in the right direction. But even the most stringent standards, those certified internationally by the Forest Stewardship Council, are only a modest step away from the large-scale deforestation practices that were prevalent until recently,” says Raul Hernandez, founder of Old-Growth Again, an organization dedicated to restoring logged forestlands back to their ancient form.

Hernandez goes on to explain the problem is sustainable forestry does little in the way of restoring large and ancient trees overtime. Without these trees as a significant portion of working forests, the effects forestlands can have on global cooling are limited. Under sustainable forestry practices, lands are cut at rates of up to 30 percent per decade. At this rate of cut, a forest is “sustained,” but it’s maintained as a young forest in perpetuity with trees rarely exceeding 80 years of age.

OGA is changing this by practicing a much higher “Restoration Forestry” standard. Restoration forestry involves many practices including limiting the rate of cut to a maximum of 10 percent in any one decade. This conservative rate allows for a growth increase of standing lumber at rates of approximately 20 percent per decade, allowing the forest to mature so that a large amount of the forest canopy will once again be dominated by trees over 200 years old (the definition of old-growth).

Why is this important? “Depending on the tree species and geography, forests managed on a 200-year cycle sequester 3 to 4 times more carbon per acre than forests managed on 60 to 80 year cycles,” says Hernandez. “Restoration forestry practiced on a global scale would cause dramatic global cooling to take place while growing the highest quality lumber.”

Rainbow over Forest Redwood forestlands in Annapolis, CA—lands we are restoring through your furniture purchases

How can you help? With the nice weather, more people are spending time outside enjoying their yards. If you are looking to add some new furniture and decor, consider Forever Redwood, OGA’s thick-timber products, which help fund the organization’s mission. Add some new lawn furniture, a gazebo or pergola, a swing or just some planter boxes. The look and design of the products is a throwback to another era when lumber was plentiful and of extremely high quality.

Besides supporting a good cause, redwood products are very long lasting and can be left outdoors for decades in elements such as harsh sun and snow, without maintenance. You can choose from three grades of redwood for Forever Redwood products — young, mature and old-growth. Half of the lumber used is from salvaged material left on the forest floor when the forest was first logged in the 40s and 50s. This wood is carefully inspected, and because of its high quality, much of it is in great shape and can be used, a testament to the longevity of the old-growth lumber. The other half comes from careful harvesting of the forest.

“One of the biggest aspects of global warming is deforestation. If forest lands are managed so they sequester carbon as they did before the high levels of harvesting, a big part of global warming equation would be eliminated,” says Hernandez.

To learn more about Forever Redwood furniture and products, and how old-growth forests are helping counteract global warming, visit www.ForeverRedwood.com.

Courtesy of ARA Content

[The following is part of a message sent to OGA supporters via our e-newsletter. If' you'd like to sign up for regular updates "from the forest, for the forest," including notification of special discounts and coupons, please visit our newsletter sign-up page. Thanks!]

It finally rained on Valentines Day! We had to wait a few more days until the ground was saturated with moisture to make sure each of the 2,200 baby Redwoods we are planting this winter have a good chance to grow to Old-Growth Again. They are between 15 and 20 inches tall when planted, after being nursed a couple years to make sure that no child is left behind! The planting will be done in early March. We’ve now planted over 300 acres the past 5 years. Our baby trees are the pride and joy of our business. Some of our young ones are now taller than the parents that planted them. Oh, how time flies.

With the current economy, we don’t take your support for granted. Your purchases over the years are the engine that makes the forest work happen. Thank you.

To grow our forestry work in  coming years, we continue to add new items to the site regularly. We’ve added several dozen in the past few months: Hall Trees, birdfeeders, bookcases, conference tables, privacy screens, hallway tables, a wishing well, dressers, a bunk bed, new benches, new swings, even a monkey bar set for the kids. 

To see some of the new items, please go to: 

http://www.foreverredwood.com/indoor-furniture.html

http://www.foreverredwood.com/specialty-items.html 

If you can’t find something, just type it in the site’s Google search bar and it will come right up. Also, to make our product line more affordable, we have added a less expensive, fourth grade of wood option for our entire line. You can now buy any item in Douglas-fir for 20% less than our least expensive Redwood grade. The Douglas-fir is a fine alternative in many cases.  It comes with an 8 year decay warranty and all the construction features and dimensions are exactly the same as in our Redwood line.   

To read about the Douglas-fir, please go to:

http://www.foreverredwood.com/wood.html      

To learn more about our forestry practices, please visit:

http://www.foreverredwood.com/restoration-forestry.html  

If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact us we’ll get right back to you.

For the forest, from the forest,
Raul F. Hernandez
Old-Growth Again Restoration Forestry, Inc.
33800 Annapolis Rd.  Annapolis, CA  95412
866-332-2403  Fax:  619-374-2462

Restoring logged forests back to Old-Growth Again.  Forever Redwood furniture sales fund the restoration.

www.foreverredwood.com

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Background Story

I was invited last fall to do a call-in radio show by my old dear friend Edwin Nieves. The radio station was KZYX in Philo, CA. www.kzyx.org Ph: 707-895-2324. The show is called Earth Matters. It was recorded Oct 28th, 2008.

Edwin and I met in the 1980’s when we worked in low income housing projects in Oakland, CA. He was a real estate broker connecting investors to old buildings needing work and a lot of energy to manage them. In the early years I was the property manager for a firm called Urban Renaissance. We were active during the 1989 World Series earthquake and wound up spending several years focusing on rebuilding and managing a 9 building city block project near downtown that was condemned by the earthquake. We rebuilt the buildings and added 120 housing units back to the area. Eventually I focused on putting together documentation packages for Urban Renaissance and other local entrepreneurs/social activists to help finance these projects via a successful low-income housing tax credit program. As the low-income housing tax credit programs expired and wound down, I began to spend more time in the woods on the forest restoration work and eventually moved to Annapolis, CA full time in 1995. Edwin would spend his spare time helping in the woods and helped me design and build the little cabin that is still my private sanctuary.

Edwin has been active in local environmental issues in Mendocino County since the early 1990’s. He has 2 brilliant daughters in graduate school now. We’ve had countless into-the-night conversations about forestry issues locally. One of these conversations this past summer led to an invitation to the show. Edwin has been one of the hosts of the Earth Matters show for many years and asked that I share the Old-Growth Again story with his listeners. It was a surprisingly thorough interview covering all the basics of our work. Edwin was very professional but he also managed to crack me up a few times. Its about 55 minutes long and the second half is call in questions from the audience. The questions were excellent. 

If anyone wants to contact Edwin, he can be reached at Edwin@pacific.net.

Throughout recorded history, forestry has usually been practiced in extremes.  Rarely is it a level-headed conservative approach.  Through the first 6,000 years of recorded history, humans mostly just mowed down forests around them to create living and agricultural grounds.  In the past couple hundred years, some level headedness has been introduced.  First in the mountains of Switzerland to avoid landslides from over cutting hillsides above towns. And in the U.S., the Forest Service was formed over 100 years ago under Gifford Pinchot as a middle of the road, “wise use” management philosophy service.  Over the decades, politics has taken the U.S. Forest Service from very conservative to semi-exploitative and back again.  Today, all timber companies talk green and are certified “sustainable” by various agencies, but with few exceptions, they are still over-harvesting their lands.  

A recent article in the news reports on a U.S. Geological Survey finding that old-growth forests in the west are dying off, due to global warming.

THURSDAY, Jan. 22 (HealthDay News) — Trees in old-growth forests in the Western United States are dying at twice the rate they were a few decades ago, and experts suspect regional warming is to blame.

The report, led by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), found that the increase in tree deaths has included trees in a variety of forests, elevations and sizes. Species have included pine, fir, hemlock and other coniferous trees. In addition, the rate of new tree growth has not changed, according to the report in the Jan. 23 issue of Science. [Read the full article.]

The article goes on to report that the consequences of this phenomenon include ”increased wildfire activity across the Western U.S., as well as bark beetle outbreaks that are occurring at unprecedented levels across Western North America.” And we learn that “these changes in climate necessitate a reevaluation of policies on how forests are managed, including new ways of dealing with wildfires and limiting development.”

From my perspective working to restore Old-Growth Redwood forestland in northern California, here’s my take. Global warming is real. But so is a mindset in certain parts of the scientific/political/academic community to use alarmist tactics to push conservation and other agendas. Yes, higher temperatures have created problems with die-offs in many western forests that are affecting Old-Growth Forests as well. There are huge bug infestation increases and other issues. Some of it can be attributed to climate, but I assure you, the bulk of the issue is poor forest management practices that are coming home to roost.  Also, the article makes it seem that ALL western forests are facing this grave issue. This is the alarmist part. The truth is the bulk of the lumber volume west of the Mississippi is on the Western Coast. The die-offs that were studied are inland from the coastal areas. Although the inland forests amount to several times the acreage of the coastal forests from Washington State down to Central California, they represent less overall timber volume than the coastal forests do. Therefore the coastal forest health is more important and it is not addressed in this article because it doesn’t fit the alarmist agenda.

I don’t disagree with the alarmist agenda. We need to scare the pants off people to fix these things, but it’s also good to keep your perspective. The major forests of the west (the coastal forests) are not being affected much if any by what is discussed in this article. On the western coast, in the Redwoods where Old-Growth Again operates, climate change is tempered by the ocean’s influence over the coastal climate.

We desperately need to make changes in the ways forests are managed. And, this is mentioned in the article. Unfortunately what is considered change is in most cases a drastic swing in the opposite direction away from over harvesting and poor soil management to almost complete preservation (no tree harvesting or almost none). Preservation is fine if the forests are in good shape. But, imposed on structurally deteriorated stands, it creates even more problems than it solves (species composition, tree quality, fire hazard, etc.).

If old trees are allowed to dominate the canopies of forests while the poor quality and overrepresented species are slowly culled, the forest will once again recreate microclimates that will insulate themselves and begin to positively influence the external climate to its advantage. But, the forests of the west are fragmented and full of problems created mostly by bad forestry. I am certain that under the present management schemes, the forests in general will continue to deteriorate including the old-growth tree patches that remain. But, if the forest is managed to recreate mature and old-growth trees, and most of the poor quality trees are systematically removed, the opposite of what this study predicts will happen. I assure you.  I will prove it to you.  Just check back in 30 years and you’ll see how much healthier and larger the lands your crazy uncle manages are in.

In early November 2008, the Veterans Administration Hospital in Fresno held a dedication for a new wing and garden area.  Old-Growth Again had previously installed several benches over the years and we were contacted again to build and install some Veterans Memorial Benches and Round Picnic tables for the new outdoor area. To help the VA stay within budget, we donated some of them.

The Hospital was most gracious to add our name to the Marble Monument commemorating the event. The Veterans Memorial Bench is the original design that has been built by the VFW and installed in parks nationwide going back to the Spanish American War of 1898. The VFW asked us to make a couple of these benches a few years back and since then we have agreed to build the exact replica and forward 10% of the proceeds for each Veterans Memorial Bench sale to the VFW office in Kansas City, Missouri. It’s a beautiful bench historic bench designed to last for many decades. You can see the Veterans Memorial Bench on our website at:

http://www.oldgrowthagain.org/bench_vfwa.html

The VA system is under much stress these days dealing with the injured from two on-going wars plus the veterans of prior conflicts. Our donation was small yet the thank you was huge. If you’d like to help out the Veterans, the VFW Foundation can be contacted at:

VFW Foundation
406 W. 34th Street, Suite 514
Kansas City, MO 64111