Design for Global Forestry
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DESIGN FOR GLOBAL FORESTRY A NEW PARADIGM FOR CREATIVE MATERIAL SPECIFICATION GRACE JEFFERS, BA MA CONTENTS 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS © GRACE JEFFERS 2017 4 AUTHOR’S NOTE 6 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7 INTRODUCTION 8 PART – 1 SEEING THE FORESTS 8 WHAT IS A FOREST? 9 SEE THE FOREST 10 FORESTS ARE NOT RENEWABLE 11 THE STATE OF GLOBAL FORESTS 12 PART 2 – FOR THE TREES 12 FORESTS FIRST 12 ENDANGERED WOODS & FORESTS 13 LACEY ACT 13 FLEGT 14 CITES 14 IUCN 15 LEGAL CONSEQUENCES 16 THE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOALS 16 DESIGN A SOLUTION 17 PART 3 – DECIMATING DEMAND 17 THINK EXTINCTION 17 EBONY 18 TEAK 18 TAIGA FORESTS 19 THE BIAŁOWIEŻA FOREST, POLAND 20 THE BUTTERFLY ECONOMY 21 CONCLUSIONS 22 APPENDIX – IUCN RED LIST WOOD SPECIES 24 BIBLIOGRAPHY 24 PRINT 26 WEB 28 USEFUL LINKS 2 WILSONART ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are several individuals who provided significant assistance and without their help this document would not be as strong. My thanks to Julie Sandy, Peter Nolan, Candace Thompson, Rhett Butler, Don Trent Four Arrows Jacobs, Eric Meier, Bill Esler, Ellen La Nicca, Alison De Martino, Megan Mazzocco and Susan Szenasy. I am also grateful to the professors at SUNY College of Environmental Forestry, Clemson University Forestry and Department of Conservation and Dr. Nalini Nadkarni (University of Utah) for her generosity of explanations. Thank you Mike Meier, material scientist, Davis, California, for helping me see the world differently. Thank you to Wilsonart for their vision, courage and support in developing this document. Thank you to The Ellen MacArthur Foundation and The National Science Foundation for their permission to use their wonderful illustrations. For their significant books I thank David Suzuki, Thomas Pakenham, Colin Tudge and Alex Shigo. Thank you to my fellow designers for your encouraging willingness to play your part in saving our remaining forests and regenerating them for future generations. 3 WILSONART We were once few and lived simply. Now our population has risen AUTHOR’S NOTE to over 7 billion, including a rise in our living standards (UN, 2017). More of us living better for longer, all needing shelter, food, water and amenities and finally realizing that this planet is a finite resource. Where forests were once vast and abundant they are now dwindling everywhere, and we need to ask ourselves not only how are we going to live on this planet, but also how are we going to live with this planet? We rely on forests for survival. Inhale. We owe the air in our lungs to forests. I may be writing in an apartment in New York City, but if not for the boreal forest in Canada to the north or the Amazon to the south, I would not be here breathing. Forests are the lungs of the earth. They are also the reason why rain falls. No rain, no food, no food, no me. Most of us live far removed from the reality that affects us all. Nature is detached and far away. This paper is the result of a life changing epiphany. I spent 10 years writing an encyclopedia about materials for Thames & Hudson London. My first realization was that the world of materials education and understanding is itself a fragmented landscape. Materials science examines ceramics, metals and polymers. Textiles are studied and pioneered by completely different artists, engineers and scientists, as are man-made and natural fibers. Wood science and paper science are different schools of study. So is the study of raw material extraction and processing. These academic silos operate in isolation, clinging to their knowledge, ignorant of its place within our global knowledge system. But when I wanted to learn more about wood I had to understand where it came from, and what was happening there. Here was my moment of realization. The story of wood is one of the most complex in the whole field of materials. Rosewood, for example, is a term for the wood known as Dalbergia nigra, which represents 250 distinct sub-species found in at least a dozen countries across four continents. Each country has its own approaches to forestry and laws related to it, but perhaps most shockingly is that there are often differences in the seemingly simple question “What is a Forest?” My academic and career background is in art and design. I was trained to identify the species that were made into objects. But I have come to see the story of wood as thousands of years old, a picture of colonization in which our hunger for it has driven us around the globe. This story is still playing out today, every day, all across the planet. What I am trying to show in this paper is how our selection of materials plays into that story. 4 WILSONART The disciplines of architecture and interior design, as well as decorative art history focus on only the aesthetic, micro-structure qualities of wood. This paper will offer a different context; the macro-structure. Quite literally my aim is to show you the forest instead of just the trees, because every single day you and I are impacting forests. I hope to guide you to ask deeper questions, and it is in the asking of these questions and in respectfully listening to diverse points of view that humanity will find solutions. It is my deepest and most sincere hope that this will happen, but we cannot solve a problem without clearly understanding it. May my efforts provide you with more clarity. With great reverence for all that is. Grace Jeffers New York June 2017 5 WILSONART Wood is renewable but forests are not. This paper challenges EXECUTIVE today’s designers to consider how their choices impact this planet SUMMARY and its future. There is mass confusion, delusion and misleading concepts of what a forest really is. As humans we each have an idea of what a forest looks like, and yet barren, stripped landscapes are defined as forests. There is a world of difference between the wild primary forests of our ideals, and secondary growth or plantations that are “officially” WHEN GOOD INTENTION classed as forests. IS NOT ENOUGH Despite their good intentions, Prada Humans have irreparably destroyed up to 75 percent of primary, old-growth forests since the industrial revolution, emphasizing failed disastrously according to the premise that designers — in leading the hearts and minds of Greenpeace and Rainforest Relief. consumers — must urgently understand alternatives to wood so Prada did check if the wood specified as to protect our remaining forests. for the floor of their New York Designers, architects and engineers can help by realizing that “epicenter” store was endangered, but wood comes from unique and irreplaceable forests. By questioning a wood’s conservation status and where it comes from, designers that is not enough. can save forests and protect their practices and their clients from legal proceedings. The Rem Koolhaas designed “Wave” There are endangered woods just as there are endangered animals. floor became an environmental Would you upholster a chair in Siberian tiger? Of course not, yet we cause célèbre because it was crafted have furnished a store with a zebrawood skateboard ramp without a thought that this wood is nearly extinct. from zebrawood illegally logged in Cameroon. (Metropolis, 2002) Various governments have developed laws and agreements to protect Yes, it is great design, but now over endangered species, and these have been extended to include forests and other plant life. There are clear regulations and punishments 15 years later we can learn from Prada’s outlined in the Lacey Act, CITES and IUCN. There are also clear mistakes. They perpetuated illegal guidelines within the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. logging the destruction of habitat and Just as it cannot save the rhino from the demand for its horn, animal life. In addition, zebrawood is legislation alone cannot solve the problem of illegal wood. In order now on the IUCN Red List as critically to be successful, legislation must be combined with education. This requires knowledgeable and outspoken designers, architects and endangered. (IUCN, 2017) engineers to lead the way, as they have so often done, in changing how and what our civilization consumes. Right now there are repercussions for companies who ignore the laws. Gibson Guitars and Lumber Liquidators are two recent examples. Both were penalized $350,000 and $13,000,000 respectively for using illegal woods. Far greater punishment was the impact on Lumber Liquidators value. It fell from a high of $120 per share to $60 within months of the import ruling. Along with the subsequent formaldehyde scandal, shares fell to a low of $10. (Reuters, 2016) 6 WILSONART The purpose of this paper is to introduce a new way for designers, INTRODUCTION architects and engineers to think about wood. It intends to challenge design assumptions regarding the relationship between a wood species and forests around the globe, and to replace old thought processes with one that addresses a bigger picture — Earth’s life systems. Designers have been trained to see the aesthetic beauty of wood, the rich colors and decorative grains. Beyond identifying the species — for instance, the difference between oak, maple and mahogany in terms of grain and micro-structure — very few humans can look at a wood species and tell you where it came from in the world and the state of the forest from which it was extracted. This paper chronicles the complex issues of global forestry from the perspective of botany, biology, silviculture, agriculture, conservation, wood science, architecture, interior design and industrial design, so as to provide a comprehensive primer on the topic. Our most influential of professions is familiar with the micro story of wood, but not its macro story.