KEYNOTE ADDRESSES Forest Products and the Environment: A Productive Symbiosis

Symbiosis can be defined as a mutually beneficial relationship. Can there be a symbiotic relationship between forest products and the environment? If there is symbiosis of forest products and the environment, human beings are central to the process. Historically forests have always played a significant role in the human environment. At one end of the relationship, forests help provide the oxygen in the air we breathe, as well as basic needs of shelter, food, and fuel. On the other end of the relationship, a healthy environment with little pollution, fewer weather extremes, and a reduction in forest fires, can advance the use of forest products. Over time the relationship between forest products use and environment has changed. As human population has significantly increased, we have begun to look at the need for a positive, sustainable relationship of forest products use in the human environment. How important is the forest to the human environment? Forests cover about 30 percent, 3.9 trillion hectares, of the total land area of the world. Each hectare averages about 110 metric tons of biomass from which 6.6 billion of the world’s people consume a significant variety of products. As our world population and forest products consumption continues to grow, the symbiotic relationship between forest products and the environment becomes more complex. There are several critical contemporary issues related to forest products and the environment. For example, the use of wood to provide energy is a worldwide need, since about half the wood consumed in the world provides energy—from fuel for a wood stove to input for an electric power plant. The use of forest products can also play a role in the sequestering of carbon to ameliorate climate change and reduction of forest fire risk. Finally, the use of wood compared to other raw materials, can have an environmental advantage. The continued beneficial relationship between the use of forest products and a healthy human environment should be a focus of research in wood science and forest products.