The World Wildlife Fund has reported that the southeastern United States contains several forest types of national and global significance. Forests throughout the state and region are home to a huge number of native plant and animal species, many of them rare and endangered. Trees grow back readily, but functioning forests do not. The proliferation of wood-chip mills has only made matters worse, increasing harvest volumes and harvested acreage in counties where timber removals already exceed new growth. The reality of what's happening to our forests is not news.
Sustainable forests are also essential to a robust and profitable forest-products industry.
So far, however, industry leaders have turned a blind eye to the forest crisis, choosing instead to point the finger at urban sprawl as the main threat. All agree that sprawl is a problem, and timber companies and their sizable real-estate subsidiaries would do well to join conservationists and others in doing something about it. But forest health depends upon sustainable timber practices, too. Unless foresters begin actively managing the lands in their care not only for their valuable timber but also to protect wildlife, water quality and other nontimber values, many of those values will be lost forever. A broad coalition of business, conservation and community groups is calling for a temporary moratorium on new chip mills to relieve some of the pressure on North Carolina's forests and give the next governor and legislature time to generate sustainable solutions.