TREE OWNERS NEWS
July 1993
Sherry and I just got
back from another month in Paradise - and we want to bring you up to date.
Burma - Three Years of
Teak Left
We just received an Alert from the
Rainforest Action Network about the massive logging of Burma's rainforests, especially its
teak forests.
The vast majority of teak consumed in the
world today comes from the world's natural rainforests, such as the massive harvests being
taken from Burma's once mighty teak forests.
Burma's rainforests contain approximately
80% of the world's teak supply and are an easy source of hard currency for the Burmese
military government. A century-old teak tree can bring as much as $25,000.
Concerned scientists estimate that loggers
are destroying nearly 2 million acres of Burma's rainforests each year.
Neighboring Thailand, which banned logging
within its own borders in 1989, recently resumed logging in the nearby Burmese teak
forests.
The Rainforest article predicts, "The
resumption of Thai logging in Burma will accelerate the destruction of Burma's already
ravaged tropical forests."
But of much more critical
importance, the report also predicts, "if logging continues at the present rate,
Burma's teak forests will be completely logged out in less than three years."
It is now even more urgent, and potentially
more profitable, to plant teak and other endangered tropical hardwood trees for later
harvest.
TEAK TREE PRICES GOING
UP!!
The prices for Santo Domingo
teak trees are going up Friday, August 6.
Please see Santo Domingo Teak for details! |
Despite the massive harvests of Burma's
remaining teak forests, the price of teak continues to climb.
To find out just how much, we called a
tropical wood import broker. The wholesale import-export prices he quoted for teak today
are an average of 52% above those he quoted less than two years ago.
This is a price rise of more than 23% per
year, nearly four times the rate of price increase in our teak projections.
(Later this year we will study the rate of
increase of the prices of our native species.)
One year old teak on Campo Real - June 1993
It is the rainy season now in Costa Rica,
and Campo Real is alive with activity. About sixty workers are busy pruning, cleaning,
fertilizing, drilling, and planting.
We plan to plant more than 45,000 trees of
about 30 different species at Campo Real this planting season.
Some of our workers are busy planting
native species and others are planting the last flat areas with teak.
Still other workers are cleaning and
pruning the 1992 teak. And others are completing the cleaning of the rows of native
species planted last year.
During the dry season, the natives species
need to be protected from the hot sun, and the grasses are allowed to grow tall around the
trees. In the rainy season, when the sun is not as hot, the workers clean around the
native trees to let the rain and light reach them.
We did not measure the native trees on this
trip, because the workers were still in the process of cleaning around them, but some of
the cristobal trees, for example, were over six feet tall.
The growth of the teak is amazing. The 1992
teak trees at Campo Real now average about fifteen feet in height, more than double our
projections. Some are over twenty-five feet tall and three inches in diameter.
It was a joy to watch our planting teams on Santo Domingo
When we arrived at Santo Domingo on the 7th
of June, the flat fields had been transformed. The tall grass and weeds had been chopped,
areas had been smoothed out, and the fence rows had been pruned.
There was work going on all around in final
preparations for this year's planting.
As we pulled our Trooper into one of the
two large fields, we saw a tractor with a flat trailer behind. Workers were loading rocks,
old stumps and other debris onto the trailer to be hauled out of the field so we can later
mow between the rows of trees. A small bulldozer had just cut a drainage ditch and was
smoothing the area.
In the distance, a backhoe was dislodging
some larger rocks and loading them into a waiting dump truck.
Another tractor was moving in large
overlapping passes, thoroughly disking the field, turning the vegetation under to add
organic material to the soil and loosening the earth for the planting.
In the weeks before, workers had prepared
thousands of stakes to mark the planting lines, and our engineer had laid out base lines,
five hundred meters long and ninety nine meters apart.
Now workers were carefully placing the
stakes three meters apart in arrow-straight lines that stretched as far as you could see.
That afternoon Sherry and I planted the
first tree, as we had done the year before at Campo Real. The planting began.
Two teams of five workers each worked with
ropes longer than a football field, each marked with tape every three meters. Row after
row, the workers pulled the ropes tight and straight between the base lines, and marked
the spot for each tree, exactly three meters apart, in rows three meters apart.
Some of the workers made holes while others
walked the line, placing a teak stalk by each hole. Then all five team members hand
planted the teak stalks in the holes.
An older forestry worker with years of
tree-planting experience was now overseeing the marking, and controlling the quality of
the planting.
At first the workers seemed unsure, not
moving as a team, feeling their way. They knew what to do, but the work just didn't flow.
It was all familiar and comfortable for us.
Sherry and I had seen the same thing with the workers at Campo Real as they began their
first planting the year before. We knew these workers too would soon hit their stride.
We visited Santo Domingo every other day
for the month of June, alternating with Campo Real. Each time we returned, more work had
been done and the planting teams gained precision.
By the third week, the machinery had moved
to the other field, and the planting teams were really singing - literally.
It was such a joy to see them move, each
worker knowing exactly what to do and moving in synchrony with his teammates.
Two workers pulled the rope tight while two
others quickly made holes at the spots marked on the rope. The fifth teammate literally
ran down the row, distributing the teak stalks.
Then in two's, they planted - one at each
of two adjacent holes, each one leapfrogging past the other as he finished planting a tree
- all the while singing and shouting as they competed for the most rows planted.
Late in the afternoon, as the older
forestry worker and the farm manager walked the rows and reviewed the day's planting, they
found little to be redone, and a lot to be proud of.
When we visited Santo Domingo for the last
time on July 3rd, we drove slowly down the road in the center of each of the fields, and
looked at row after row of little teak trees beginning to sprout their first leaves.
Thousands of trees had been neatly planted where none had stood just four weeks before.
Disking the soil to prepare for planting at Santo Domingo
Judging by the wonderful soil in the flat
areas of Santo Domingo, and the size of the several teak trees already growing on the
farm, we can expect excellent growth at Santo Domingo.
Sherry and I have decided to work a little
ahead of our orders and plant all of the flat area of Santo Domingo this year. By the end
of July or the first week in August, all of the Santo Domingo teak will be planted.
To be fair to everyone, on August 6 the
price of teak trees will go up, because by that date all of the teak trees will be in the
ground and growing. If you would like to take advantage of the pre-planting price, your
order must be in by August 6.
As we are writing this, we have Santo
Domingo teak trees available but we can't promise for how long. After reading about the
teak forests in Burma and confirming the dramatic rise in wholesale teak prices, Sherry
and I have increased the number of Santo Domingo teak trees we are retaining for our own
account.
Please call soon if you want to order
trees, or if you have any questions at all.
Sherry standing next to a teak tree
planted years ago
on Santo Domingo
We wrote in the last
newsletter that the Rainforest Alliance is considering granting us certification as one
the few Smart Wood sources in the world. Richard Donovan, the director of the Smart Wood
Certification program, visited both Campo Real and Santo Domingo in May, and made a
preliminary evaluation.
After visiting our farms, Richard wrote
that our program of planting teak on the flat areas of the farms and native species on the
hillsides is appropriate for "silvicultural, ecological, and economic reasons."
He said that we have a good selection of
native species that includes important endangered and threatened species, and he found the
work that was going on at Santo Domingo "very impressive."
Richard wrote that, pending a more detailed
follow-up evaluation by an independent forester, "I believe that the
Tropical American Tree Farms
reforestation project will qualify for Smart Wood Certification as a well managed
plantation. Such a certification would mean that the project is using forestry practices
and a management philosophy that are in keeping with Smart Wood guidelines. We would
certify that Tropical American Tree Farms is planting what it says it is, that the reforestation activities are
well planned and implemented, and that the reforestation is following both Smart Wood
guidelines and, to the extent we can evaluate it, Costa Rican law in terms of
reforestation practices."
Although we are not yet certified, it
certainly feels good to hear from someone with Richard's experience that we are doing
things the right way.
Sherry and Steve receiving the National Arbor Day Foundation's
1993 Good Steward Award
Our May weekend in Nebraska City to receive
the National Arbor Day Foundation's 1993 Good Steward award was a truly rewarding
experience. They made us feel like heroes.
We met a number of wonderful and committed
people, ranging from the Governor of Nebraska, to an eleven year old boy from Park City,
Utah, who had been chosen for a poster he made about saving trees. The whole weekend was a
wonderful experience.
We thought you might enjoy seeing some
recent articles about Tropical American Tree Farms. We've included a copy of an article
from the May 4 Columbus Dispatch and another from the June issue of World of Wood, the
Journal of the International Wood Collectors Society.
Please continue to share all of this news
with others you think might enjoy being involved in our project. More than ever, we want
to plant as many tropical trees as possible. And more than ever, we believe this is a
uniquely profitable opportunity.
Sherry and I again thank all of you for
your continued confidence and support. Without you, much of what we are doing, much of
what we've written about in this newsletter, would not be possible. We want you to be
proud to be an important part of this unique and worthwhile project. |
