By Sharon Green
A cypress framed and clad cottage nearing completion.
The South East Queensland Regional Plan has predicted that the population of the region will grow from 2.8 million in 2006 to 4.4 million by 2031.
The Queensland Department of Infrastructure and Planning claims that this rapid growth will create the need for an additional 754,000 new homes. As the state government chatters excitedly about economic growth, many of us wonder about the cost to the environment.
We can’t avoid using some timber products in most building and that means trees do have to be logged. Look around the building you are sitting in right now. Check out the window frames, door frames, doors, floors, walls and of course what’s holding it together; the framing. So when you set out to build your new home, add that essential ‘parent’s retreat’ or build a new deck, how are you going to know which timber is the best for biodiversity? You can get a different perspective depending on who you talk to.
Many construction industry professionals have come together to move the industry in the direction of sustainable forestry management. The Green Building Council of Australia, responsible for the Green Star Rating System for green building, acknowledges both the Australian Forestry Standard (AFS) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as robust regulatory bodies. Both are internationally recognised and both utilise the idea of chain-of-custody certification. This type of certification claims to make it possible for anybody to verify that the source of the timber is legal and from a sustainably managed forest.
However, it does seem that some certification standards are greener than others. For example, the FSC will not certify any plantation timber sourced from a stand that replaced natural forest, cleared after 1994.
Dave Kirby from Kirby Fine Timbers on the Sunshine Coast is a saw miller who believes that biodiversity can be protected by logging these older Queensland plantations. His small stands from Eumundi to Amamor provide him with enough rainforest hardwoods to supply musical instrument manufacturers worldwide and some local joiners and furniture makers. He says though the plantations, (monocultures — one type of tree), do not support biodiversity at all — these forests are eventually clear-felled and then regenerated again as plantations.
“These old plantations are as green as it gets, I’m against clear felling old growth forests. Plantations are the best way to provide industry with the timber products we need and preserve the rest.”
Though the AFS promotes itself as similarly responsible as the FSC, its certification of all Forestry Tasmania practises means that it approves the clear-felling of old growth forests. The Forestry Tasmania website proudly states: “One of the key outcomes of the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement was the commitment by the State and Federal Governments to reduce clear-felling in old growth forests to 20 per cent of the old growth harvest by 2010.”
This level of so-called ‘sustainable’ forest management may not sit well with many people and points to the need for those involved in the building industry or those currently managing their own building project to do their own research.
Richard Beaumont from Cooroy Joinery and Woodworks points out that the industry is complicated and is hopeful that the FSC certified wood he uses to craft doors, door frames and windows is as sustainable as FSC claims. He says that the New Guinea Rosewood he likes to work with is not clear-felled but selectively logged by locals who are paid fairly or may even share in the profits. He is also assured that similar situations exist in other countries where he sources timbers from the old growth forests in the Solomon Islands to the plantations of Mahogany in Fiji.
Greg Phipps from Eco Cottages in Pomona thinks he has hit on the perfect green timber. He uses cypress for most parts of each building. Apparently there is more cypress in Australia now than there was when Captain Cook visited. Greg says that cypress is sensitive but robust, naturally resistant against termites and, best of all, it won’t grow effectively in a monoculture. It is not drought resistant but can survive on very little rain, about 300mm a year.
“It is a prolific seeder. When it does rain, the trees throw lots of seeds but then if it grows too thick, it goes into lock up, it says to every other cypress tree, don’t eat and drink too much and then what you get is thick spindly trees that are not much use.”
In this case, human interference actually aids biodiversity because cypress does much better through selective logging and in a mixed forest environment (thus when the cypress is logged, the forest remains). However, this is not apealing for the big companies. Cypress cannot be clear-felled thus reducing the speed and quantity of the operation.
“The good thing about Cypress for farmers,” says Greg, “is that is not only encourages biodiversity but also income diversity. Cattle farmers can encourage stands of cypress on their land for selective logging.”
Andrew Webb from WD Architects in Cooran says that there are rarely any perfect solutions for both good environmental outcomes and good mass-market construction outcomes. But, cypress comes pretty close to that for framing, “if the industry would shut-up long enough to take notice and stop their scrambling over each other trying to show who’s high-energy, toxic product has more green cred.”
Andrew says cypress isn’t suitable for every application but it is the stand-out winner for framing timbers. Auracaria cunninghamii (hoop pine) has a lot going for it too. Timbers for other applications, particularly window and door frames, are a much harder proposition but generally logs from a small-scale community production, such as CBFT-certified timbers (Community Based Fair Trade), on the evidence seem to be the most sustainable for a good quality product (and if the finished product is not of a reasonable quality, it’s unlikely to be sustainable).
Staying local as much as possible is a good policy but unfortunately there are no easy answers. So when beginning your building project, start with the the Good Wood Guide , talk to some locals and be aware of the many shades of green.
Image Credit: Andrew Webb from WD Architects.
Related articles:
Follow Eco