Religious Campaign for Forest Conservation

I will never forget those simple, yet penetrating, questions asked by a young New York cab driver one Monday morning. The question startled and amazed me. I thought to myself, that question would never even enter the minds of people in Haiti, Ethiopia, Nepal, or Brazil. Ask anyone from these countries and you will get a similar reply, “Trees make the difference between living and dying -- they are food and they provide water. Without trees, there is no rain; without rain, there is no water; without water, our crops die and without crops, we die. Without wood, we cannot cook our food or heat our water. Without trees, we would burn up because they are our only shade.” If you asked an Indian in Ecuador or Brazil about the need for trees they will tell you they are storehouses for their food and medicines.

Ecclesiastes 9:16 tells us, “Wisdom is better than might; yet the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are not heeded.” Those of us in the West are not used to listening to the wisdom of less-powerful people from other countries. But we need to. Our lifestyle has separated us so far from creation that we do not understand God’s provision to us through trees. And our very lives are at stake because of it.

Unfortunately, a typical middle-class American Christian response to the cabby’s question might be: “You're right, who needs a tree_” Or as my own response would have been some seven years ago, “Well, it’s got nothing to do with me.” Our response in not necessarily an indicator that we do not care — it may be that we just do not understand. I spoke to a missionary recently who told me, “I believe we should feed people before we save trees.” It is interesting that we have failed to see that by not saving the trees or caring for the creation as a whole, we cause poverty — we create the circumstances by which others are made helpless in their own villages, cities or countries. Millions are forced to migrate to other environments that have trees, water and topsoil — environments that sustain life. Haitians, for example, are not just political refugees, they are environmental refugees. Both Scriptural teaching and scientific knowledge regarding creation show us the linkage between the environment and the poor. If we miss this link, we will carelessly destroy God’s global forest, and without knowing it, destroy people.

My worldview seven years ago did not include the relationship between my actions here at home and their impact on the poor — especially on those brothers and sisters who suffer from environmental degradation in the poorer countries. Although I had been a short-term missionary in Zimbabwe and in several other countries around the world, I somehow missed the connections — the bigger picture. The comfort of my own little world in the U.S., including my evangelical missionary world, focused my attention solely on saving souls without seeking ways to provide an environment conducive to alleviating suffering. I did not yet appreciate the words of Ezekiel 16:49: “Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food, and abundance of idleness; neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.”

God calls us to strengthen the capacity and capability of the poor to live. Our stewardship of creation — e.g. planting and protecting trees — can create resources that enable the poor to meet their needs and to give to others.

As Americans, we have become comfortable with our environment of concrete, steel, aluminum, plastics, and artificial fibers, colors, and flavorings to such a degree that many question whether or not we even need to focus on a relationship with the creation. We have lost the desire to seek God and the ability to see God in all things. And perhaps, we have closed our eyes to the beauty, usefulness and importance of God’s creation as expressed through the forests because we have substituted the wonders of human creation for the wonders of God’s creation. This form of idolatry should concern us.

The clear-cutting controversy in the Pacific Northwest has been portrayed as a conflict between owls and people, between jobs and the environment. The opposite is true. Creation (the environment — in this case, trees) is the basis for jobs. Without trees, there can be no timber harvest, and no logging jobs. In Louisiana, without forested wetlands, there would be no harvesting of shrimp or certain kinds of fish — shrimpers and fisherman would be out of business and one of Louisiana’s greatest sources of employment would be gone.

Because we have separated and isolated ourselves from the natural creation, we fail to understand even our basic economic connection to the creation. The majority of local, national and global economies are based on natural resources like trees and forests. In the case of the Pacific Northwest, the truth of the matter is that the greed of the timber industry caused much of the problem. For many years, profiteers have been selling and exporting raw logs to foreign nations, particularly Japan, leaving little business for local sawmills -- basically exporting logs and jobs. The Japanese pay twice what American sawmills offer for giant old growth logs and they are eager to pay for by-products such as wood chips. The Federal government has encouraged this export over the years, basically subsidizing the Japanese wood-processing economy through the destruction of our old-growth forests and the loss of U.S. jobs.

Four hundred years ago, the virgin land of the Northwest was blanketed with 850 million acres of primeval forest. Outside of the national parks and wilderness areas, only about a million scattered acres remain. In tropical forest countries, the scenario is just as grim. Thirty years ago, tropical forests covered 16 percent of the land; today they cover just 7 percent. In Africa alone, a tropical forest area the size of Ohio is destroyed each year. In Latin America twice as much, in proportion to the total area, is destroyed. Some countries, like Haiti, have almost completely destroyed their forests. Thailand, once a net exporter of timber, is now a net importer of wood. The great ancient forests of the Philippines will last only a few more years. Japanese companies, ironically, now are invading World War II island battlefields to cut down their tropical forests, having already stripped away much of East Asia. Canada is called the Brazil of the North because of the way it ravages its forests, particularly in the Northwest.

A tree cannot be isolated from its surrounding. It is part of an integrated system designed by our Creator. The owl issue of the Pacific Northwest brought to the nation’s attention the necessity of protecting the complex web of life in the forests in order to maintain a specific species’ population. When a forest is clear-cut, trees grown as a crop will be ready for harvest in 75 years, but the rich diversity of animal and plant life may never return — the web of life is forever altered.

A tree, through its whole life-cycle, is part of a larger web of life, or ecosystem. A tree provides habitat for animals, insects, and plants. It continues to do so when it falls to the ground. The energy stored in the decaying tree becomes available to fungi, bacteria, molds, salamanders, earthworms, and more. A rotted tree becomes part of the humus mat which is a den for mice, voles, and countless other animals. The porous mat slowly turns into soil, the organic foundation of the forest.

In addition to providing homes and habitats for animals, birds, and plants, the ancient forests function as the lungs of the world. Forests absorb carbon dioxide from the air, releasing oxygen for us to breathe. Without these massive lungs, through which polluted air and clean air is processed, the world would be filled with smog so thick that we would not be able to breathe. Even today, if you go into a city like Katmandu, Mexico City, or Bangkok — cities with a great deal of pollution and few trees -- you will have to wear a handkerchief over your mouth to prevent soot from filing your lungs.

“All over the world, there are libraries of a sort. They are among the most beautiful places on the earth, and they hold more information than the Library of Congress.” Within these libraries are millions of books, each a unique masterpiece to see and touch. They are teaching this language to scientists. However, so far only one percent of the books have been deciphered. Some tell how to find new medicines; others reveal new things to eat.... These treasure houses of knowledge are the ancient forests of our planet.”

Twenty-five percent of prescription medicines in the U.S. contain at least one plant-derived compound. Half of the rare and endangered plant species in the U.S. are related to known medicinal uses. Many of these plants are found only in our ancient or original forest. The Pacific yew tree, for example, is found only in the ancient forests of our Northwest. The drug taxol, which is used to treat ovarian cancer, is produced from its bark.

Of 75,000 humanly edible plants found in nature, only about 150 are eaten by us. Only about 20, mostly domesticated cereals, stand between our societies and starvation. Yet there are wild trees in the Amazon that each yield 300 kilograms of oil-rich seeds a year, others whose fruits have more vitamin C than oranges and more vitamin A than spinach, and others whose seeds contain 27% pure protein. So far, of about 300,000 plants that could be analyzed and classified, scientists have carefully evaluated only about 5,000.

In the opinion of leading scientists, the threatened loss of many of the planet's diverse species, most of which reside in the remaining ancient forests, is one of the gravest crises of our time. In 1990, in an "open letter to the religious community," some of these scientists acknowledged the important religious dimension of global environmental problems such as species loss. They asked the church for help. What will be the church's answer_

In the early 1500s, Leonardo Da Vinci studied the trees of his day, and observed that trees produce a new ring each year. As an artist studies his object, so we should take time to study the Creator’s artwork. The ancient forests are places of indescribable beauty. They are God’s masterpieces reflecting his invisible attributes, his eternal power, and his eternal Godhead. We are losing one of the natural witnesses to the character and beauty of God.

I have known people who have come to the knowledge of a Creator God through the silent witness of the creation. The web of life in a forest testifies to many biblical principles. Life in the forests depends on death. When a tree dies, it produces the substance from which other creatures can live — a vivid symbol of the Christian gospel of death and re-birth and the need to die to self in order to live in Christ.

Jeremiah the prophet lamented the destruction of the wilderness and saw that when the people of God were not listening to his voice and following his commands, there was destruction upon the earth. Sin of humankind is reflected in the creation’s destruction.

"I will take up a weeping and wailing for the mountains, and for the habitations of the wilderness a lamentation, because they are burned up, so that no one can pass through them.... Who is the wise man who may understand this_... Why does the land perish and burn up like a wilderness_ And the Lord said 'Because my people have forsaken my law and have not obeyed my voice, nor walked according to it'" (Jeremiah 9:10-13).

God loved the creation so much that he entered into covenant with man and woman to care for the creation, to have dominion (kingly, godly rulership) over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every living thing upon the earth (Genesis 1:28). He also put man and woman in the garden to tend and keep it (Genesis 2:15). God loved his creation so much that he entered into a covenant with every living creature “...behold, I establish My covenant with you and with your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you.. .”(Genesis 9:9,10).

We cannot save the forests unless we love them, and we cannot love them until we understand the love God has for them and the rest of creation. How important are forests to God_ There are over 200 references to over 100 species of trees in the Bible. Scriptures refer to trees used for shade, burial sites, food, buildings, idols, fuel, and the cross. Fruit trees were important enough to God that God commanded that they not be destroyed during war.

“When you besiege a city for a long time, while making war against it to take it, you shall not destroy its trees by wielding an ax against them; if you can eat of them, do not cut them down to use in the siege, for the tree of the field is man’s food” (Deuteronomy 20:19) .

Our beginnings took place in a garden of fruit trees. The book of Revelation tells of our final destination — the new Jerusalem — at the center of which is the tree of life, whose leaves are for the healing of the nations (Rev. 22:2).

We are made in the image of God and to reflect that image in truth is to walk in right relationship to God, our neighbor and the creation. We are called to steward the creation and we are called to care for the poor. We need to be a voice for the voiceless witnesses of God’s creation. We need to repent of the sin of neglecting the creation and our neighbors, and commit to a lifestyle which honors God by respecting his creation and his children.

It took God one day to create the tree, and it takes humankind one day to destroy a 1,000 year old strand of forest. Indeed, humankind has been given dominion — the power to cause suffering as well as the power to heal the creation. We have the power to save forests which could provide the world, particularly the poor, with food, shelter, water, medicines and clean air. Or we can close our eyes and walk the other way.

It has been said that conservationists may be a nuisance to live with, but they make great ancestors. What will the future verdict be about the Christians of this century_ Will we be characterized as those who cared about God’s creation and sought to meet the needs of the poor or will we be known as those who did nothing to stop the destruction of the forests and their living testimony to God's eternal power and Godhead.

I am sure you must have been aware that when Susan Drake wrote of the "greedy" and "profiteering" members of the timber industry that exported logs to Japan, "leaving little business for local sawmills...," she was referring almost exclusively to the Weyerhaeuser Company whose ... Forestry, Lands and Timber Department I managed for fifteen years.

Let me give you our side of the picture: Prior to October 12, 1962, our shipment of logs to Japan was nominal. But, on the date just mentioned, God sent hurricane Frieda across the Pacific, striking our coast near Coos Bay, Oregon. In November, another storm did additional damage. Aerial reconnaissance revealed that on our ownership alone, we lost over 3 million trees from blowdown. This represented about 3 billion board feet of lumber.

Sapwood decay and bug infestation... required a major effort to salvage this massive amount of timber as rapidly as possible. But where would the market be for such an overwhelming increase in log production_ Local mills could not possibly absorb it before excessive loss from decay.

Providentially, Japan became the answer. The Japanese economy was expanding.... We immediately took advantage of this situation which was enhanced by the fact that the Japanese were offering considerably higher prices for logs than the local market.... We would have been irresponsible to our shareholders and the environment if we had not taken advantage of this opportunity.

Meanwhile the U.S. Forest Service... (and other government land owners) were holding timber harvesting auctions. ... (If) Japanese interests had not been able to buy from Weyerhaeuser, they would undoubtedly have entered the public timber bidding fray, and with their superior purchasing power, could easily have outbid the local mills.

I am therefore certain that no U.S. sawmill in the 60s, 70s and 80s was unable to purchase timber at market prices. However, some inefficient mills could not compete. Others were unable to convert from cutting old growth... to second growth. Therefore, it should be very obvious to any unbiased observer that removing millions of acres of public timber from sale because of a totally false sense of need to protect the spotted owl is the main, if not the sole, cause of the present day plight of the logging industry.

Ms. Susan Drake seems to be unaware that all decisions of management must constantly have in mind the best financial interests of the shareholders. This is management's fiduciary responsibility.... The shareholders of many companies do, however, recognize a responsibility to help meet the social needs of communities where the company maintains operations. In response to this, the Weyerhaeuser Company Foundation contributes approximately $5,000,000 each year.

Please address your attention to the spiritual and moral issues of today's social environment, which, if we all did, environmental issues will take care of themselves. But, if you must continue to pursue your present efforts, please limit your sources of information to those who are knowledgeable on the subject.

It was not my intention to imply that everyone in the timber industry is involved in greedy exploitation of the resource, nor did I imply any one company was to blame. I recognize that there are businesses that are working very hard to sustainably harvest forests. The point I was trying to make, using the example of the Pacific Northwest, was that the spotted owl is not responsible for the demise of the timber industry; it was simply the catalyst for a premature day of reckoning — a reckoning of years of overharvesting of old-growth forests as a reflection of technological changes such as mill automation.

For nearly three decades, forestry experts have been telling the timber industry that if they maintained 1963 management practices, they would be a major decline in the timber harvest levels of the Pacific Northwest in the 1990s. As you state correctly in your letter, investments were made to ensure short-term profit. Unfortunately, the quarterly reporting system promotes short-term rather than long-term investments, something European industry has changed. One of my central points in the article was that we, as believers in Christ, are accountable to God for the way we use His resources. In the case of industry, it is accountable not only to shareholders, but to the community, and ultimately to God....

The way we as believers make profit from God's resources, whether personally or corporately, needs to be done within the parameters of the scriptural mandate to steward God's resources. The modern Church, unfortunately, has not been very good at teaching us what that means. Choices about how to use God's resources are indeed a moral and social issue. In my reading of scripture, not one single issue in life lies outside a social and moral context and that includes God's resources -- His creation.

For an additional perspective, Green Cross invited Tim Hermach, forestry economist and director of the Native Forest Council, a research institute on forests and logging, in Eugene, Oregon. He comments on both Susan Drake's article and Mr. Weyerhaeuser's criticism.

In evaluating Susan Drake's Global Forest article and C. D. Weyerhaeuser's response, I can well understand Mr. Weyerhaeuser's objections. The industry's long history of past practices and the tragic state of our country's forests and watersheds leave a lot to be defensive about. But hopefully that's in the past.

While some members of the timber industry are improving their management practices, most are not, and almost none are managing their lands in a fashion that does not degrade forest lands, watershed, fish and wildlife and our children's future.

Thanks to development of cities, highways, crops, parking lots and the timber industry's unsatiable appetite for wood and money, combined with a general disregard for environmental degradation, we are now left with only 5% of our nation's original one billion acres of native forests unlogged while the Brazilian Amazon rainforest has 85% unlogged and intact. With but one exception, the amount of original forest acres remaining, Susan Drake's article is right on the money and accurate.

The fundamental disagreement between Ms. Drake and Mr. Weyerhaeuser is that the author sees the forests as a priceless and irreplaceable human life-support system; Mr. Weyerhaeuser and the timber industry see the same forests as a resource to be cut down for money.

I am especially dismayed by Mr. Weyerhaeuser's attempt to justify making as much money as possible exporting unfinished wood in the name of their shareholders. Exporting our country's forests as logs, chips and pulp is hardly community minded considering that it takes less than ten American jobs per million board feet to export minimally-processed wood while in Japan, they employ fifty to ninty jobs per million board feet by manufacturing something from our wood. Considering that the timber industry exports an average of 12 billion board feet of unfinished wood products annually (from USDA reports), just from Pacific Northwest ports, that's the equivalent of 600,000 manufacturing jobs exported overseas and lost to Americans (based upon at least 50 jobs/million board feet).

However it's time for mutual forgiveness and instead of blame, to focus on the future. We would all be better off acknowledging the errors of the past as we begin the necessary work together of building a sustainable, non-environmentally damaging timber industry on private lands. Above all, the publicly-owned forests should be maintained as virgin forests as they were created under God's management not man's.

I am a forester who works for a major forest products company with forest land holdings in the Southeast and Northwest United States. I am a member of Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Fernandina Beach, Florida. My personal relationship with Jesus Christ is the most important thing in my life and the decisions I make in my personal life as well as at work are predicated on prayer and scripture.

One of my job responsibilities is to work with environmental groups in order to reach common solutions to the complex problems we face in balancing conservation of our natural resources with the demand for forest products. Our company's objective... is to provide people with forest products while at the same time protecting the resource and the creatures that depend upon the forest for survival....

I was disappointed, hurt and astounded at the first issue of Green Cross . The idea that the Church where I first learned of God's saving grace is implying that I be stoned for crimes against the environment is hard for me to rationalize in the context of scripture.

What disappointed me most was the fact that the magazine resorts to a radical environmental strategy of identifying good guys and bad guys instead of presenting opposing points of view and offering solutions to find middle ground.... The message of Susan Drake's article, entitled "The Global Forest," essentially implies that cutting down a tree is in direct opposition to God's plan for creation....

She states, "the truth of the matter is that the greed of the timber industry caused much of the problem." Her article contained misinformation and used statistics in a manner that presented a distorted view of the truth.... Her statistics that implied that little old growth remains on private lands failed to cite the millions of acres of old growth protected from harvest on public lands....

Blaming the timber industry for cutting down trees is a cheap trick. Our company plants 20 million trees per year in the Southeast alone. I can assure you that if people did not create a demand for the products, the industry would not harvest the first tree from the forest....

What we need from the Church is healing. The Church should provide for uniting people with various life journeys and opinions together to reach common ground on these issues. I don't see the Church's role as one of encouraging environmental activism. We should all strive for balance and to responsible, educated stewards of the natural resources God has given us.

However, as I reread Susan Drake's forestry article, I don't find any sense that she is characterizing people associated with the timber industry as "villains suitable for stoning." She is merely placing trees and the timber industry in its wider ethical and moral context and identifying a Christian perspective on this often emotional issue.

You should also know that Green Cross purpose is not about confrontation of corporate misdeeds so much as (1) developing a Christian ecological worldview and lifestyles which integrate into the ecosystem of the planet, and (2) articulating a biblical vision of creation which helps people of faith see the journey from a society of intense consumption to one which is far more organic and ecologically sensitive.

To accomplish these goals, we begin with education about how we exploit the treasures of creation and how our use of these treasures is contrary to the longterm needs of a stable and sustainable society. As soon as we initiate this discussion, and premise some intrinsic value to the parts of creation that goes beyond a mercantile value, we collide with corporate assumptions about the purpose of things in the world. What Green Cross calls "creation's treasures," which God intended for use by all people, the corporation considers "natural resources" for sale to the highest bidder. This brings into focus fundamentally different worldviews.

While I acknowledge your desire to find a way through our different views, a Christian view rejects any solution based upon economic necessity as being able to resolve our differences. The differences we hold are the result of prior assumptions about values. Any reconciliation lies in a common search for what is morally right.

A large part of the problem in this discussion is that most of religion in the United States has been unconsciously captive to economic and cultural assumptions about what religion ought and ought not to do. As we seek a wholistic sense of Christian responsibility, including creation, integrity demands that we engage cultural assumptions.

While you, Mr. Montgomery, urge us to find "common ground," there is no common ground between the exploitive mercantile attitude and the biblical perspective. We are called by God to care for creation. "We can use, but we cannot abuse." What timber corporations have done for too long in this country is abuse the forest treasures of creation. It has gone far beyond what ought to be wise use or right use. Witness clearcuts. Witness salvage logging. Witness the landslides and damage to streams and fisheries. These actions are wrong and the whole Judeo-Christian tradition stands as a witness against them; even your own church cannot condone the wanton pillaging of the land.

You ask me to compromise in finding "common ground." Compromise, to me, is a political term, not a term which one uses when discerning what principle or what is morally right by God. From my perspective common ground will can come when we "seek first the kingdom of heaven and its righteousness." When we are on the same page with this demand, then we will also be able to be on the same page with what is right in regards to the forests. When we can do this together, then we can also prayerfully penetrate this issue and find what is right before God as regards his forest treasurers. This is where we have our common ground.