Timber Pests Threaten America's Forests

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Forest Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises http://forests.org/

12/4/96
OVERVIEW & SOURCE by EE

Following is a photocopy of an excellent Village Voice article which discusses the potential impacts of introduced forest and timber pests upon America's already diminished forests. Serious threats to maple trees and other species are highlighted, whose potential impact is compared to the historical demise of American Chestnut and American Elm. The suggestion is made that the increase of imported logs into America may be opening up additional species to impacts from foreign pests for which they have no natural protection. This is one of a number of pressing forest health issues besides the obvious over harvest occurring nearly everywhere. Other examples of non- traditional forest health stresses include air pollution (particularly ozone) damage, competition from exotic introduced plant species, and others. Forests are an important indicator of larger system ecological health.

Bugs Brought In From Abroad Threaten America's Already Dwindling Forests The Village Voice Worldwide Internet Site: http://www.villagevoice.com:80/ by James Ridgeway & Jeffrey St. Clair

12/3/96

WASHINGTON, D.C. At the turn of the century, the majestic American chestnut tree filled up to 25 per cent of the eastern forests and supported an entire complex ecosystem. By 1950, a rapidly spreading fungus-traced only last year to a source in Japan-had virtually wiped out the chestnut. Later in the 1950s, the elm trees that lined the streets of New York City fell prey to Dutch elm disease, a plague that spread westward and destroyed two thirds of the nation's elms. The apparent source of the disease was a single imported log, which rode the rails west from New York through Pennsylvania and into Ohio.

Today, scientists are in a panic over the threat to another abundant American tree species, the maple. The source of all their worries is a small, spotted bug found crawling out of a Brooklyn maple. The September discovery of this imported pest-brought in this time from China-has led some scientists to call for a preemptive strike that would cost the borough's streets and parks hundreds of its maple trees. More important, it has brought home questions about loosening environmental regulations in a time of unrestricted international trade.

When they first saw the little telltale holes in Brooklyn maples, authorities thought juvenile delinquents had been at work. Instead, scientists discovered one of two initial specimens of the seldom seen Asian longhorn beetle (the other was spotted in Amityville, Long Island). "I gasped when I saw it," said E. Richard Hoebeke, a Cornell University entomologist who made the discovery. "I knew this wasn't a species native to North America."

Entomologists believe the bug could follow in the path of the chestnut and elm blights, and end up killing upward of 8 million trees on the East Coast, many of them maples. Such a plague would not only be an environmental tragedy but spell ruin for much of the tourist and maple sugar industries. "If it's happened here, it certainly may rear its ugly head once again," Hoebeke said. "It could have a grave, profound impact on our nation's forests."

In response, some scientists have recommended cutting down numerous maples in Brooklyn and Amityville in order to kill the invaders, and taking whatever steps necessary to stop the bugs from getting off Long Island to the mainland. If the insects should advance, they could chew their way through approximately 300,000 acres of maple trees up and down the East Coast. "Should this beetle escape from Long Island . . . the magnitude of damage could far exceed that of any insect, including the gypsy moth, in forests, orchards, and in urban areas," warns an ominous pest risk-assessment report. The document, prepared by the U.S. Department of Agriculture along with New York state and local governments, contends that more than 800 million trees, covering 62 per cent of the state's 18.6 million acres of forested land, are possible targets of the bug. Potential losses would run into the billions of dollars. The report continues, "The risk of attack in the United States is probably much greater than in China because we have a greater abundance of ALB's prime food source- maples."

Unfortunately, the discovery of the Brooklyn bug presages a much broader threat to America's already dwindling forests. The Asian longhorn beetle is just one of a new wave of invading pests and diseases being brought to American shores, the result of rising-and increasingly unregulated-foreign trade. Many of these exotic insects and fungi-with names like the Asian gypsy moth, the pine bark beetle, and the Mexican pitch canker-are carried in on foreign logs that have been cut down by international companies. These logging companies have been searching out wood supplies in the heart of the world's few remaining primal forests.

"One of the real problems," says Fields Cobb Jr., a University of California forest pathologist, "is that as we start logging off the natural forests of the tropics and other remote areas, it will be very easy to overlook potentially dangerous pests and diseases. These agents are very obscure in their native habitats because natural forests in diverse ecosystems tend to suppress widespread pest outbreaks." When these new diseases are brought into the U.S., they can destroy not only species but whole ecosystems. The chestnut, for example, "was an unsurpassed source of food for wildlife," says Cobb. "Dozens of species depended on it, including the bald eagle." In addition, Cobb notes, lesser-quality oaks took the place of the chestnut tree. This opened the way for the emergence of another deadly disease called oak wilt, now threatening all the oaks in the eastern forests, and making those wooded areas much more susceptible to the ravages of the gypsy moth. Imported logs are coming to the U.S. in steadily increasing numbers. These logs are replacing the diminished supplies of American timber, which have been depleted by overcutting and, ironically, an increase in American logs being shipped overseas. The loosening of environmentally related trade rules under both GATT and NAFTA has brought on this increased exporting of timber.

For years the USDA, which regulates the trade in raw logs, has maintained a policy of "zero tolerance" when it comes to pest risks in timber. In recent years, however, the department's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) has eased this blanket prohibition and set forth rules for getting rid of the bugs by fumigation with the pesticide methyl bromide or by a heat treatment. The change in policy resulted from the USDA's concern that its regulations "not be applied in a manner which would constitute a disguised restriction on international trade."

Today, international timber companies are importing raw logs from Mexico, Chile, New Zealand, and Brazil by truck and ship. Every day, 12-wheelers roll up I-5, the West Coast's main north-south artery, loaded with Mexican pine. Rayonier-an international forest-products company-imports $1 million worth of timber each month to Oregon and California from New Zealand. In addition, it sends daily truckloads of uncovered Mexican green lumber up I-5 to company mills in Eugene and Prinesville, Oregon. Rayonier also transports Mexican lumber by sea to Coos Bay, Oregon.

The company operates in 60 countries and owns hundreds of thousands of acres of timber in Washington as well as in the southeastern U.S. and New Zealand. Katie AmRhein is the manager of New Business Development for International Forest Products at Rayonier. In federal district court papers, she declared that her company "depends on imported green logs, lumber and wood chips as a substantial source of revenue." Rayonier expects its imports of green lumber from Mexico to more than double to $12 million in 1997. The firm says it is increasing its imports because environmental regulations are reducing the amount of timber available for commercial purposes in the U.S.

But at the same time Rayonier is boosting timber imports, it is also increasing the number of potentially dangerous pests in this country. An October 1996 report from the USDA's Wood Import Pest Risk Assessment Team revealed a variety of pine-eating bugs in logs imported from southern Mexico by Rayonier.

Another international timber giant, the Seattle-based Weyerhauser, also imports wood from abroad. David Coburn, the firm's communications manager, said the company imported a "partial shipload" of pine logs from New Zealand earlier this year, which were then turned into a clear plywood for certain customers. According to Coburn, Weyerhauser adhered to a USDA "fumigation schedule" in which the pine was first debarked before shipping, then fumigated. "We use methyl bromide in New Zealand before logs are shipped," he said.

Methyl bromide-which the USDA requires as a fumigant for logs from some foreign nations-is one of the world's most deadly pesticides. It has been proven to be one of the most potent contributors to the depletion of the ozone layer. Methyl bromide is mostly used in fumigating tomatoes and strawberries in Florida. But it is increasingly being applied to logs, which is ironic given the international, U.S.-backed protocols aimed at reducing and eventually eliminating its use.

"Using methyl bromide to treat imported lumber is a bad idea," says John Passacantando of Ozone Action, the Washington, D.C.-based public interest advocacy group. According to scientists, the fumigant barely gets beneath the bark. Passacantando cites a United Nations technical options group report that said when used on shipboard, most of the methyl bromide fumigant drifts off into the atmosphere, where it contributes to the ozone hole. The best way to get the bugs out is with heat, but that only works when the lumber has been milled. Milling ought to be done close to where the trees are cut down, not in the U.S.

In addition, the existing USDA structures are inadequate to control the flow of new pests and diseases. "Windows of opportunity still exist for introduction of exotic pests and pathogens into North America, even with the current USDA APHIS regulations," Kathleen Johnson of the Oregon Department of Agriculture wrote recently. "Sufficient USDA APHIS inspectors are not available to inspect containers for imported, untreated woodpacking materials, which potentially may be infested."

Yet another threat looms just over the horizon in the form of an enormous program involving hundreds of companies anxious to import timber from Siberia. In this vast territory-where timber is controlled by the Russian mafia and the logging done by prison gangs-the bugs are rampant. Observers from a European parliamentary team reported that up to "20,000 caterpillars can be found on one single Siberian tree, and that they can strip the tree of its bark in five minutes." Based on this fact, a USDA team concluded that "the risk of significant impacts to North American forests is great," running anywhere from $24.9 million in damage in the best of circumstances to $58 billion in a worst-case scenario.

The U.S. banned the import of raw Siberian logs in 1990, citing the threat to the Douglas fir by the Asian gypsy moth or the spruce bark beetle. But in 1994, the government took steps to undercut that ban and permit the import of raw Siberian logs under certain conditions. To rid the Siberian lumber of bugs, a new international combine now proposes to irradiate them.

West Coast environmental groups, led by Californians for Alternatives to Toxics (CATS) and the Pacific Environment and Resources Center, are going into federal district court in San Francisco later this week to try and block the import of raw logs. "We have no other option but to stop imports and return to the old zero-tolerance policy," says Patty Clary of CATS. "The alternative means increased use of methyl bromide and other pesticides. Even these are no guarantee that pests won't survive to destroy millions of dollars of domestic timber resources."

The timber-import business is driven in part by the Clinton administration's overall relaxation of federal regulation, along with the overall global drive for free trade. Timber is often given away in Third World countries in exchange for the building of roads and infrastructure. Sometimes the wood is purchased by international combines for as little as $5 per thousand board feet, and then sold in the U.S. for as much as $1000. Labor costs provide another incentive for timber companies to move to developing nations. Loggers and mill workers in the U.S. make between $15 and $25 per hour, while the same workers in Mexico and Chile earn less than $3 an hour.

Additional Reporting: Jason Barton

This document is a PHOTOCOPY and all recipients should seek permission from the source for reprinting. You are encouraged to utilize this information for personal campaign use. All efforts are made to provide accurate, timely pieces; though ultimate responsibility for verifying all information rests with the reader. Check out our Gaia Forest Conservation Archives at URL= http://forests.org/

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