Most of the pertinent points in this debate have already been made by others. I'll just throw in my 2 cents.
I do forest biotech research, and (like every other forest biotech person I know) consider myself an environmentalist.
I'm operating from the following premises.
1. World human population will grow to at least 10-12 billion. This is unfortunate, and I don't know anyone personally who looks forward to having more people in the world. Nevertheless, that is the probable reality which must be faced.
2. The average world standard of living, measured in the economic terms now used (which don't account for all costs, especially environmental) will increase.
3. Demand for wood products will increase. Substitution of other materials is technically possible, but the cost and environmental impacts of the current alternatives to wood and wood-based fiber (e.g., steel for construction; kenaf, hemp, straw for fiber) do not make them clearly superior to wood, mainly because inputs (energy, nutrients, water, and/or high quality land) are higher for steel or annual fiber crops than for equivalent yields of wood from trees.
4. Demand for food will also increase, very likely more than doubling. Currently, 11% of the Earth's land surface is used for agriculture, 26% is pasture, and 30% is forested.
5. Demand for energy will increase. Petroleum will cease to be the cheapest source of energy sometime between 2025 and 2050. Alternatives will include energy from biomass, which will further increase demand for plant matter, competing with food and fiber uses.
There are two basic ways to meet the demand for wood/fiber/biomass. One is to spread the harvest out over native forests, in a strategy very much akin to 'hunter-gatherer' foraging for food. The other is to intensify wood production in the same way that agriculture intensifies food production -- by co-opting a sizeable land area and dedicating it to high-yield mechanized production. By analogy to agriculture, this latter alternative will include the domestication of trees, monocultures (always more productive when resources other than light are not limiting), and genetic engineering.
Personally, I would prefer that a portion of land be dedicated to maximum wood production along agricultural lines, by converting some pastureland into plantation forests, thereby eliminating (or at least greatly curtailing) any logging in natural forests. Since plantation forests are 5-10 times as productive (measured in wood volume) as the *best* natural forests, intensive forestry will have a relatively small footprint.
While there certainly are risks (actual and potential) associated with genetic engineering, monocultures, and intensive agriculture/forestry, there are also risks associated with NOT exploring or adopting these technologies. We already see the consequences of low-yield agriculture in the clearing of forests for food production (note that most deforestation is for agriculture, and the wood is not even used but is burned as part of the clearing operation). Proponents of lower-yielding agriculture and forestry technologies must be forthright in counting the costs of increased land areas subject to more human influence, just as they demand (rightly) that proponents of intensification account for the environmental consequences of water use, nutrient runoff, and the potential for gene escape from transgenic crops/trees.
Toby Bradshaw | (206)616-1796 (voice)
College of Forest Resources | (206)685-2692 (FAX)
University of Washington | http://poplar2.cfr.washington.edu/toby
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